NYCPHP Meetup

[csnyder]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 12:21 PM, sbeam <sbeam at onsetcorps.net> wrote:

> The fact is, a hardcopy paper audit trail is a lot simpler and you don't need
> a PhD in cryptology to understand it. And it might even be cheaper than a
> digital solution.

The real-world physicality of paper is what makes it safe. To forge
votes, or to destroy votes, requires the manipulation of physical
objects. It's easy to do for a handful, but extremely difficult to do
on a massive scale. Thus, the more power is at stake, the harder it is
to rig the vote.

With digital-only systems, a single flaw or backdoor can allow vote
rigging on a massive scale, at very little expense. We barely trust
digital systems to conduct routine economic transactions; to trust
them with assigning political power is an incredibly bad idea. Even if
everything was open source and done exactly right, I would still want
a paper trail thanks very much.

And by the way, the voting machines we use here in NYC are rumored to
be corruptible... something about inserting a toothpick between the
teeth of the gears of candidates that shouldn't win? We really have no
idea what's happening when we pull that big lever.

  chris.