Post by Keith on May 26, 2007 18:47:10 GMT -8
The thought of using electronic voting over paper balances seems to be quickly, easy, and convenient. But, e-voting isn't without its flaws. The flaws presenteded in e-voting are very dangerous flaws that cannot be overlooked. Electronic devices are manufactured by people. Electronic software is written by people. So, the hardware and software for these e-voting machines are made by people.
Machines are just as fallible as people, especially the people that made them. If I made one of those machines, I would know how the machine runs. If I wrote the software to be used for the voting machine, I would know the language and the coding for it.
What that means, if I wanted to I could rig an election by tampering with either the hardware and make it go on the fritz. If I know the software, I could easily put a secret program within that software that could change a person's vote for Candidate A and that vote will go to Candidate B. This presents the major flaw and possibility on how e-voting machines can be tampered with and hacked. That's going to screw up an election.
Also think of the possibility of the company that makes the machines have connections with people in one of the political parties. That can lead to all sorts of bribery, corruption, etc. It shows the unreliability of using e-voting machines. Information stored within the machines can get easily damaged and thus leaving no trail behind. Electronic trails can easily vanished.
Paper trails are far more difficult and nearly impossible to do away with which is why we need to stick with paper ballots.
Companies can say that their software is hack proof but that's going to do more harm than good. That's issuing a challenge to every hacker in the world to bring it on. Bill Gates said that one of his versions of Windows was hack proof. Days before the operation system was to get shipped out, the program got hacked. Another operating system, Gates had the five top hackers working on it. But what about the five top hackers undiscovered?
Things can happen that'll change votes on the machine or lose lots of information. Aside from the obvious factors, there are external factors such as power outages. You can lose information on a computer from a power outage.
If Gates' software can get hacked, then e-voting software isn't that much different. So, if polling areas are only going to use electronic voting machines and the software gets hacked, it's going to set back an election for hours and possibly days. You can do all the programming you want but it's not going to be full-proof. It can be nearly flawless. But nearly flawless isn't going to cut it.
Should voting areas use e-voting machines, there should be paper ballots as well. In the case something goes wrong with the machines, there will be the paper ballots that are going to leave a paper trail behind. Go ahead and use e-voting machines, but the flaws they present will require the need of the good ol' paper ballots.
www.helium.com/tm/305476/thought-using-electronic-voting
Machines are just as fallible as people, especially the people that made them. If I made one of those machines, I would know how the machine runs. If I wrote the software to be used for the voting machine, I would know the language and the coding for it.
What that means, if I wanted to I could rig an election by tampering with either the hardware and make it go on the fritz. If I know the software, I could easily put a secret program within that software that could change a person's vote for Candidate A and that vote will go to Candidate B. This presents the major flaw and possibility on how e-voting machines can be tampered with and hacked. That's going to screw up an election.
Also think of the possibility of the company that makes the machines have connections with people in one of the political parties. That can lead to all sorts of bribery, corruption, etc. It shows the unreliability of using e-voting machines. Information stored within the machines can get easily damaged and thus leaving no trail behind. Electronic trails can easily vanished.
Paper trails are far more difficult and nearly impossible to do away with which is why we need to stick with paper ballots.
Companies can say that their software is hack proof but that's going to do more harm than good. That's issuing a challenge to every hacker in the world to bring it on. Bill Gates said that one of his versions of Windows was hack proof. Days before the operation system was to get shipped out, the program got hacked. Another operating system, Gates had the five top hackers working on it. But what about the five top hackers undiscovered?
Things can happen that'll change votes on the machine or lose lots of information. Aside from the obvious factors, there are external factors such as power outages. You can lose information on a computer from a power outage.
If Gates' software can get hacked, then e-voting software isn't that much different. So, if polling areas are only going to use electronic voting machines and the software gets hacked, it's going to set back an election for hours and possibly days. You can do all the programming you want but it's not going to be full-proof. It can be nearly flawless. But nearly flawless isn't going to cut it.
Should voting areas use e-voting machines, there should be paper ballots as well. In the case something goes wrong with the machines, there will be the paper ballots that are going to leave a paper trail behind. Go ahead and use e-voting machines, but the flaws they present will require the need of the good ol' paper ballots.
www.helium.com/tm/305476/thought-using-electronic-voting