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Politics : HOWARD DEAN -THE NEXT PRESIDENT? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (1050)	12/16/2003 8:26:14 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 3079

Considering Computer Voting nytimes.com (Page 2 of 2) But some of the critics know a lot about computing, security and elections - like Prof. Aviel D. Rubin at Johns Hopkins University, who led a team that analyzed purloined code from Diebold and found flaws that he said even basic training in secure coding would prevent. His work was cited in Nevada's decision to choose Sequoia's machines over Diebold's. "The only way that vendors are going to produce auditable machines is if they are forced to,'' Professor Rubin said. "So the recent moves of California and Nevada to require voter verifiable paper are huge steps in the right direction." A spokesman for Sequoia said that providing paper had less to do with security than with voter confidence. "I still don't believe that paper is essential," the spokesman, Alfie Charles, said. "But it's becoming more important - for perception if nothing else, and perception is critical in the voting process." A spokesman for Diebold, David Bear, said that the company did not oppose the idea of voter receipts, and was happy to sell whatever kind of voting machine election officials wanted to buy. "We're in the business of providing products that our customers need," he said. In fact, the company's machines already have thermal printers that are used to produce end-of-day reports, so providing individual receipts would not necessarily require an enormous change. Not all of Diebold's employees are so supportive of change, as Web sites that have sprung up in opposition to the machines have shown. Among the thousands of internal e-mail messages from the company that have made their way to anti-Diebold Web sites is a Jan. 3 message to colleagues by an employee identified only as Ken. Referring to criticisms of the Diebold, he wrote that news articles about a paper trail missed an important point, which he italicized: "they already bought the system." "At this point they are just closing the barn door,'' Ken wrote. "Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts." In a later note he explained that he meant, "Any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive." Mr. Bear, the spokesman for Diebold, said, "It's safe to say that an e-mail does not represent the policy of Diebold." Professor Rubin said he was heartened by the increasing demand for a paper trail, but said it was only the first step toward ensuring that election security moved forward instead of backward. "We still don't have a process for ensuring that the people writing the code of those machines know what they are doing, or are not malicious," he said.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (1050)	12/16/2003 1:07:43 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

re: computer voting I don't know about the fraud issues, but I think computer voting would be a great thing in general, because right now the only people who vote are special interests that are either prodded to vote by their organization (unions) or are groups concerned about some sort of handout. The vast majority of busy, working people who just want jobs and a balanced budget can't get to the polls before 7 pm. I know, I have been one of those people who has not voted from time to time. The elderly people in my district all vote, and because of this some things like school bonds don't get funded that most people under 50 would like to see passed. I just want to level the playing field and get more younger working people voting and electronic voting will fix that.