Fools Rush In: HuffPo Article Touts Internet Voting , Written By Internet Voting Co Exec

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Huffington Post is running a puff piece promoting internet voting. This article is a test of reader gullibility. The piece was written by an executive of a company that profits from internet voting. Pretty unethical of HuffPo to run this as news, instead of advertisement.

And if you are easily conned you will be reassured to hear that the internet voting system in the article used "military grade encryption". Then that means you haven't heard about hackers like the Scottish guy who broke into 97 computer systems, belonging to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense and NASA using just dial up and commercially available software!

Did this internet voting company pay HuffPo to post advertising as if it were a report or news article? Are people gullible enough to trust internet voting?



...Fools rush in! Here's excerpts from the advertisement - er - I mean article. Be sure to read the comment section:

May 14, 2009 Aaron Contorer Chief of Products and Partnerships, Everyone Counts, Inc.

America's Newest State Holds America's Newest Election

Huffington Post.

For too long we have tolerated the idea that elections should be difficult. If you think voting is inconvenient, too bad for you, say pundits. And if elections are expensive and a logistical nightmare to run, oh well, at least there aren't too many of them.

America's newest state, our southernmost state, has a different idea. Right now, as you read this article on the Internet, citizens of Honolulu are voting in America's first all-digital online and telephone election. Residents of neighborhoods with contested board seats received pass-codes in the mail, along with a Web address and a phone number allowing them to vote at any time, day or night, from anywhere in the world.

...In this case the technology manufacturer, a California company called Everyone Counts (where I am Chief of Products and Partnerships), isn't just advancing the art of government. It's also saving taxpayers money, enfranchising voters with disabilities and soldiers overseas, and making life easier for hard-working citizens who may not have time between work and family to go to a polling place but who care deeply about their communities.

What better use of technology? Who would see democracy stuck in the past, a relic of the age before secure encryption, before cash machines, indeed before telephones?

Who would continue our present system in which less than one third of soldiers overseas can successfully vote? Who would leave secure digital communication to the military, while subjecting our democracy to the insecurities of a cardboard box full of papers in someone's trunk?

... BLAH BLAH BLAH .... YOU GET THE GIST OF IT THIS SHOULD BE IN THE PAID ADVERTISEMENT SECTION ALONG WITH THE ADS FOR NATURAL MALE ENHANCEMENT REMEDIES, CAUSE ITS UTTER BULLSHIT.

Here's the link so you can read the rest of the puff piece and post a comment while you are there, ok?

Oh my gosh, did I use bad language? Well, it angers me to see snake oil salesmen screwing up our democracy and get free advertisment, in effect an endorsement, by Huffington Post.


Tell them why its insane to allow elections to be connected to the internet much less held on the internet.

[Wilms]

1. Agreed. n/t

[diva77]

2. I wonder whether having the election reform digest back again would breathe

life back into this vital forum. I wish I weren't too swamped to help out more.

I bristle at the thought of the cost and the accepted non-transparency with the corporations "running" the elections for Schwarzenegger's propositions to allegedly save CA from going totally bankrupt- the irony of the millions upon millions allocated for the cost of the elections versus the need for painful cuts that will be decided by the election is so infuriating I don't even know where to begin! I haven't heard this addressed by the media at all.

:rant:

As for the OP (had to get my rant in first) - Arianna needs to learn the simple mantra that voting and soft/hardware don't mix.

[clear eye]

3. Maybe the company also owns their server. n/t