Computers in Election Vigils - take two

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 9, 2015, at 5:39 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:
> 
> John Robertson asked:
>>> After the fiasco about the Deibold machines changing votes during the 
>>> Bush election of 2000, Brazil opted for them?
> 
> To which Alexandre Souza replied:
>>    Yep. Welcome to the land of the stupid.
> 
> Ok, I think we need some facts, here. Note that from the very first time
> I used one of these machines to vote and noted that they typed in my
> voter ID number using a little keyboard which had a cable going into the
> voting "cabin" to prep the machine for my vote, my opinion of the whole
> thing has be very negative. After all, I had only their word that they
> were not saving my ID along with my vote - there was no hardware
> limitation against it doing this. 

That's not the real problem.  The real problem is that you had no way to be sure, no way to verify, that the machine was recording your vote and would accurately report it later.  It might just as easily report numbers that someone had told it to report, not connected to any reality.  How would you know?  If anyone were to question this, how would you prove that the count is honest?

	paul