That's right, its time for more evoting. Well, not they actual voting part, but the part where we argue about the result, technology and obscurity. Remember that guy in Florida that lost by a few votes while thousands of votes were... um... well, not misplaced so much as never recorded? Well now a judge has ruled that he can't have access to the machine's source code because it contains "trade secrets". Yeah, trade secrets, like "randomly pick winner" and "create illusion of democracy." No, I'm just kidding. You can see exactly what's in these machines because the source code is readily available on the Internet. You just can't use it in court because the company never wanted anyone to see how they worked. Remember that story about the thug with a bullet in his head that the cops wanted to use for evidence but he hid behind patients' rights laws to keep it away from them? Strangely reminiscent.
But lets push past the legal ranglings of this company and the judge who thinks their profits transcend democratically elected governance. Why are we contracting with companies who use secrecy as their main security protocol? Nevermind that they can't actually keep a secret, this is not supposed to be a secret process. Everyone is supposed to understand how it works. Everyone drops one rock in a candidate's bucket and the one with more rocks wins. Bottom line: if you can't show me how you do it, you shouldn't be allowed to do it.
1 comment:
that HBO special on black box voting goes into a lot of all this. they show a guy hack voting machines like a few different ways. some undetectable..thanks to Diebold.
Hacking democracy http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Qft0sSq5l0
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