[CLUE-Talk] OT? Sunday reading

[Matt Gushee]

On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 08:00:22PM -0700, David Anselmi wrote:
> >
> >Hmm ... I wonder if open source could be part of the solution to this.
> >
> 
> There are several discussions of problems with technical solutions to 
> vote counting here http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/index.22.html.  Search 
> on the page for 'election', and Rebecca Mercuri is very informed on the 
> subject.
> 
> I think that open source is irrelevant to solving the problem, except as 
> it is relevant to any programming problem.

You may be right ... my (off-the-cuff) reasoning was along the lines of:

  Part of the problem seems to be spaghetti code. If the code were 
  available for citizens to inspect, that would increase the potential
  for public pressure to fix it.

On the other hand, this certainly isn't purely a technical issue--and to 
the extent that it is, I'm inclined to believe that voting machines
should first of all mark a paper ballot in as simple and foolproof a
manner as possible for verifiability.

Anyway, I'll check out your link when I have time. I definitely want to
learn more about this issue.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee at havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)