Monday, Aug. 6, 2007 | RE: Security Through Obscurity ( Aug. 3, 2007).
Obscured: A Credible Case for Computer Aided Voting
We’ve heard enough amateur questions, loaded questions, and buck-passing answers about electronic balloting and security! The problems are real, not potential or conjured up by hired groups of professional “hackers.” The problems have not been resolved.
Single ballot box stuffers and single polling place hackers will do damage but probably not change the fate of one election. Small groups of ballot tamperers can change the outcome of elections on any scale including national elections.
Tampering with centralized voting facilities is a historical fact and the problems it can cause are enormous. It must be prevented, period. Electronic tampering or not.
Actual tampering and especially the threat of tampering causes harm and creates avoidable mistrust.
What is new to voting is the threat of the computer virus-like vote tampering which MAY be hard to detect and impossible to repair without repeating an entire electoral event.
The simplest way to avoid the computer based methods of voting fraud is to eliminate the cause. And, why not?
Has the public truly been informed as to why computer aided voting is needed? I certainly haven’t seen any compelling reasons but I’ve seen a lot of hype and spin. Scott Lewis, if you know some good reasons, please write them down and publish them in your column. I predict that it will be a very short report.
PS – Topic for a longer article: “Why Computer Voting Is Coming To Your Precinct: Follow the Money”