Electronic Frontier Foundation on voting machine standards: "EFF supports the IEEE in taking on the issue of setting standards for electronic voting machines. We also support the idea of modernizing our election processes using digital technology, as long as we maintain, or better yet, increase the trustworthiness of the election processes along the way. But this standard does not do this, and it must be reworked."
While remaining ambivalent about the ability technology in general to improve our lives, certain technologies have positive effects. The EFF, in general and in principle, is a good organziation and is usually correct in matters concerning privacy. It is wrong, however, with respect to using digital technology in the electoral process, specificallly physical voting. Any standard that uses digital technology must, in other words, not be re-worked, but rather scrapped entirely.
I've argued this before: faith in people, not technology. With the system I propose (essentially Canada's), people will make mistakes. Under any system relying heavily on digital technology, when the technology fails, the technology is blamed, but with a system of paper ballots and people counting said ballots, people would get the blame for any mistakes. Will counting the ballots slow down? Almost certainly. Will the counting be 100% accurate? Likely not. Will there be paper records of the vote, with human recollections to go with it? Yes. Will people be held accountable for their failures and given a pat on the back for a smooth election? Yes.
America's fetish with technological solutions to social problems—got school shootings? Then more metal detectors but no, not an improved education system or improved dispute resolution in the classroom and hallways—political problems—can't find terrorists? Then more intrusive satellite technology and a camera on every street to watch our every move, but no, not improved intelligence-gathering on the ground and no, not an international system based on the peaceful settlement of disputes—and economic problems—famine at home or abroad? Then genetically modified crops, but no, definitely not improved political situations in developing countries and certainly not the removal of agricultural subsidies—would be fed and encouraged. The same goes with the Florida Debacle: the problem was not a confusing ballot (okay, yes it was), but it was the belief by those in government (technically, that's you, the people) that voters don't know how to mark an X in a box with the candidate's signature and that counting must be done with machines and not people because "machines are more reliable". An adequate, nay, preferable system is one of paper ballots with people counting the results. Transparency over speed, people over technology.
[via the mighty kottke.org]
