[liberationtech] Fwd: [peoplecount] Encryption no deterent to hackers of voting machines (fwd)

[Steve Weis]

I am not defending the current state of direct-recording electronic
(DRE) voting machines. Many are poorly designed, cannot be audited, or
are deployed without proper oversight. I don't think either DRE
machines or reverting back to hand-counted paper ballots are viable
long-term solutions.

I do think we can have election systems that are easy for voters to
understand and use, inexpensive to administer, yet allow individual
voters to ensure their vote was counted properly.

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india.org> wrote:
> Thank you so much for this.  It is refreshing to hear someone actually
> defend electronic voting for a change.  In another recent discussion I
> wrote:
>>
>> 1. Not all EVMs are created equal, and each design must be evaluated on
>> its own merit.
>> 2. The problems with EVMs should not be evaluated on their own, but
>> compared to those with paper ballots.  This might not be very important
>> in "developed" countries (though the infamous Hanging Chads of Florida
>> could be used to argue against that), but in many developed countries
>> where problems like ballot-stuff, booth-capturing, etc., are rampant,
>> the cracks against EVMs *might* (depending on the design of the EVM) be
>> more difficult to carry out than against paper ballots.
>
> This was part of a conversation[1] with in which I supported Indian EVMs
> (against which a paper had been published by EFF Pioneer Award winner Hari
> K. Prasad, with J. Alex Halderman, Rop Gonggrijp and others)[2] and Eugen
> Leitl criticised EVMs in general.
>
> Notes:
>  [1]: Archived discussion on Silk List: http://goo.gl/3kOSA
>  [2]: Hari K. Prasad et al., Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting
> Machines: http://goo.gl/eCNM7
>