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Via Electronic Frontier Foundation via Boing Boing:
EFF and the Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) held a joint press tele-conference to discuss the many problems voters experienced today — and recorded the conference for download here [MP3 format] and here [OGG format].
Participants were EFF’s Cindy Cohn, Matt Zimmerman, and Ren Bucholz, VVF’s Will Doherty and David Dill, Joe Hall of the University of California in Berkeley, and Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten. Among the topics we discussed:
1.) problems including “touchy” touch-screen machines — e.g., machines that “light up” for the wrong candidate in the summary screen; machines failing and polling officials running out out paper ballots, as they did in New Orleans; and Sequoia machines showing a “default” choice that voters must correct;
2.) which states appear to have had the most trouble and how to analyze the reports from the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS);
3.) how to understand the elections data gathered on Election Day in the context of past elections; and
4.) why a paper audit trail may be the best solution for some of the problems that are coming up, especially as we head into vote tallying later this evening.
I just don’t understand the huge disparity between the exit polls in favor of Kerry and the results in favor of Bush.
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I think you know- right?- dear Osito that my dear mother is the head of elections for our county and a kind of voting-rights tornado on the NYT/NPR circuit (“Yeah, those little squirts call me when they want a zinger.” She told me recently, tapping her little red keds together.) Anyway- electronic voting was yesterday and will be for the near future one of the most amazingly corrupt industries I have witnessed in action. The systems are known to be faulty- and the companies sell them anyway- they are driven only by a quest for profits- and not only destabilize elections- but destabilize whole county budgets as well.
The idea of electronic voting without a paper trail and full audit process is insane- even the $17.87 you spend at California Pizza Kitchen is recorded on duplicate strips of paper, and then on a master roll at the end of the night. I fear we all spent too much time fighting for Kerry and not enough time fighting for our right to have our votes counted correctly.
Oh- as for dear Mom (who counted my paper vote with her usual grace and style, I’m sure)- talk about brain-drain, she told me late last night that she’s moving to Canada.
He conceded, it’s over, time to look at four years ahead.