The flip of the presidential vote ONLY when someone voted straight-party Democratic also happened in 2004 on Hart E-Slate machines in Austin and Houston. Paper trails won't help, they can be "hacked-around" We have to get rid of all these computers running our elections on rigged secret software.
http://www.hackedelections.com ; www.votersunite.org ; www.blackboxvoting.org

there is a very simple solution to this whole e-voting thing.. a printed reciept showing who you voted for and a unique record# on that reciept (that matches the one on the screen)that also get's deposited into the ballot box. (the number isn't linked to a specific voter because nobody knows which of the 30 polling PC's you randomly decide to walk up to & vote

for the "initial" voting results which everyone wants literally within 2-3 hours of the polls closing use the electronic tabulation.. obviously the Secretary of state office gives a "formal results" within 30days..

obviously the first few elections you count the paper & electronic tabulation for any errors. say the average error is 1% miscount. then you lockdown that firmware/units to no changes..

if you have an election that shows 60% to person A & 40% on electronic tabulation. the loser could demand a manual paper recount but if the paper results show in 59% to 41% the loser would need to pay the state for all costs of recounting.

voting over the internet

right now major corporations use internet voting for shareholders via a secure website don't see why we can't do the same for our elections

The security threat from e-voting machines over traditional pen and paper is that the nature of the machines allows for much wider scale tampering with less effort that can be more difficult to trace.

*Is genuinly interested and isn't being rude*

In what way do you suggest "wider scale tampering with less effort" is achievable? By programing it is such at the factory?

How on earth are those nasty-looking things "iPod like"??

Oh, right, the iPod was the first to use the "dial and set" method of selection...

If I actually liked iPods? I'd be a little miffed by that comparison....Those voting machines are butt-ugly.

why can`t they just go back to the old way of voting with paper and manually counting the votes. they ended up doing it manually in 2000 anyway

I agree. That's what I loved about where I used to live. Now I'm worried that my new location may use e-voting. How are these things constitutionally allowed when so many security reports speak against them?

I also agree that sometimes the best way to do things is the old fashioned way i.e. paper voting. Other countries have better ways of voting as far as putting a face next to the candidate to make it easier to select the one you want. Paper voting is far easier to recount as well as maintain. Those electronic voting machine probably need new batteries every time election season starts, and parts on the machine probably break and cost alot to repair. I'll take paper ballots over these craptastic machines any day.

The theory is that they're more secure because the actual signal is encrypted, unlike the pen on voting ballot of the manual method.

But then security is exploited in other ways with e-voting machines.

I'm all for pen and paper method myself. Put the picture of the candidate on the ballot paper for those too dumb to vote without pictures or the dyslexic people of America and you've pretty much covered everyone.

Paper? So wasteful! Let's get out on the city plaza and vote by raising hands. Or better - forget about democracy and institute a kingdom with titles passing by inheritance. The initial round goes by lottery - can't be much worse.

A picture doesn't help the blind.

Paul S., thoughts on electronic tabulation, or are you strictly a handcount sort? I've been following discussions re hacking and optical scanners with interest, of course, and I personally think that the hacks we *really* need to be fearing are the ones that manage to make everything look fine to the untrained eye. (A machine that insists on making every tenth voter vote for X when s/he wants Y is one thing, and would certainly incite some angry attention there at the polling place; a machine that quietly switches every tenth vote in its running count won't draw nearly the attention but could do just as much damage.)

And pictures of the candidate aren't a bad idea, at least in major races when you'd have seen images of them. One can go even simpler -- the logos of the party. (That would work better in fact for faceblind folk such as myself.) I understand that India uses graphics on their ballots, and we certainly have enough elephant / donkey / etc iconography to make that work here; might be easier to remember that the city council candidate you prefer is a member of the X or Y party than to remember that that's the guy whose ears stick straight out or whatever :-) .

Or the faceblind. Trust me on that one.

Obviously keep the braille versions that are still currently available (I believe?).

Face blind AND dyslexic. Then you have a problem. I suggest getting someone you know to read the paper out to you.

*Edit* You covered the solution to this above.

Electronic tabulation is a difficult one. If high security is required then you have a problem instantly from both manual methods and from machines.

Money causes problems with the manual way (bribes), and hackers (or programmers with intent at the factory - which in turn is probably run by money) are the fault with using machines.

I can't really see hackers being able to gain access to machines after they have left the factory in enough locations for it to matter if they've rigged a machine or not.

Another problem with e-voting machines is getting them all from the same company so that familiarity with the machines can be had. Or if not all from the same company, a state supplied design to which all companies involved have to supply the machine so that users can't get confused between the variations of voting machines.

Also, I'm not sure if this is the case or not with current voting machines, but, the data should not be sent over the internet once voting is completed. It should be printed out by the machine and then dealt with from there.

The only true way I can see that it could be possible to have a fair ballot is to in effect have a non-arbitrary jury style selection system for vote counters. Then at least if you have vote riggers as your counters it's likely you'll have equal amounts for both parties.

You make a good point about face blindness. In that case put all three on the ballot paper (and have a separate Braille version as someone pointed out below would be required).

/is currently writing a dissertation on accessibility for the web for varying age groups of web users (what each group requires while browsing the web and whether it is possible to cater for all ages satisfactorily)

Actually eSlate's got that covered -- there's an audio jack. (Heck, the eSlate can even accommodate sip-and-puff devices, like high-injury quadriplegics use. There's reason to raise an eyebrow re plenty of aspects of e-voting, but you really can't say they didn't do some smart thinking re accessibility on this particular machine!)

I'm always a bit suspicious of outputting the information by audio when it's meant to be secure. I can't put my finger on why.

I suppose I'd rather not have it read out loud (headphones) who I've just voted for.

Have you found out yet that the elderly often have trouble perceiving the color blue?

I always thought that round and round to go up and down was one of the most stupid computer interfaces I had ever seen.

I think the point was that you didn't have to take your finger off to start scrolling down again once you've got to the bottom of the scroll thingy.