voting machines

[barry glisson]

surely the people on this board can come up with an inexpensive,secure, reliable voting machine to replace the pos the 867 counties in the US used in the last election. I'm thinking linux based touchscreen with 128 bit encryption or higher. 15 in monitor, 486 maby pentium after all its only going to count. last part of program lists each vote "you have voted for xyz do you agree this is your vote if so press the big red x on the screen" that should eliminate the b.s. we have now.

[randy48]

With open source code! Not like the stuff they have now...NO DISCLOSURE http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif

[radio1_mike]

Great Idea!

It'd just need to spit out a certified hard copy receipt for the voter and the board of canvassers.

It'd need hella encryption though.

[Harold7]

Great suggestions!!! Having both the voter and the poll official sign and date the hard copy (with a copy for each) for archival and recount purposes would really clean up all the mess going on right now. Security is the big question mark though, system couldn't be hooked up via the internet to count the votes because of the potential of intrusion by hackers. Just copy the vote results to a Zip disk after the polls have closed and transport both the disk and hard copy to the main election office, what could be easier? Man, there's some smart people on this board! The trouble is, the system would probably be so inexpensive, safe and easy to use that the politicians and partisans on both sides would probably fight to the death over this too. God, I'm tired of all of them. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[barry glisson]

Lets see now Raid 5, Tape Backup, CD Burner,High security locking case terminals on a lan, 128 bit encryption ups 1 hour backup, high security locking case. What else do we need? barry

[Gomer]

I suggest a ballot with names on it. Near the name would be an arrow pointing to a hole. It is a very simple operation. All you have to do is find the name of the person you would like to vote for, follow the arrow and punch the hole. There are many benefits to this system. It is cheap, easy to implement, and there is nothing that can break down. The simplest answer is usually the best. The more complex something is, the more places it can fail. Follow arrow, punch hole. Follow arrow, punch hole. Follow arrow, punch hole.

[This message has been edited by Gomer (edited 11-19-2000).]

[Harold7]

Actually Barry, I was just reading that there is one Florida county using the old mechanical voting machines... guess what, no voting errors or controversy at all. Maybe the higher tech solution isn't always the answer.Is everyone making the solution more complicated than it needs to be? http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[barry glisson]

Gomer you and harold b7 can go call someone names in another forum . you don't need to waste your time in this thread. barry

[Gomer]

Name calling?

[Ed_S]

How about a row of diskless workstations feeding results to a guarded server at each polling place??

I'd suggest minimum-equipped 486's with mono monitors. Cheap, lightweight, and less subject to theft during storage.

Even this, though, would likely be cost-prohibitive. Remember, we're talking about thousands of machines!!
Which would all need maintenace, storage, and trained installers.

Compare this to a fold-up little booth that lasts indefinately and can be installed by anyone, and has no other useful application worth stealing it for. Probably worth about $50, maybe less.

Y'know, Gomer's idea looks pretty good...

----
And I'm NOT putting anyone down for an idea, just being practical. Stop and think about it.

We vote several times each year, not just for the big one every 4th year. Every time, the equipment must be taken out & set up, then taken down & stored. The maintenance & labor on ANY electronic system would be astronomical!
You can't solve a one-time problem by throwing money away from now on. This has never happened before & will likely never happen again.

Ed

[barry glisson]

ED i am not satisfied with a 4% margin of error lots of local elections are won or lost by less than 1%.No one who has taken the time to go to the polls should have their vote thrown out due to machine error.jmho barry

[Harold7]

Whoa there, Barry! What evidence do you have of any name calling on my part in this post? If you read my earlier comments here you'll see that I was AGREEING with your observation that the present means that Florida is using for voting is woefully inadequate and offering some suggestions of my own for possible improvements that might be made. Maybe you should step back and consider that you're being a little too hypersensitive and looking for insults where none have been offered. You're taking all of this waaay too seriously, I am not your enemy... just someone with political opinions who is not afraid to voice them. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[wyvrn]

I would say go touchscreens. Very simple and effective. Plus give an option to backup if you accidentaly picked the wrong candidate. Then at the end, review the ballot, something like:

"You voted for George Wilson and Dave Jones. Are you sure these are your final selections?"

You could have the security of a computer with the ease of a paper ballot. And to keep costs down, they could all be dummy terminals connected to one central mainframe per city. That way no tampering, and no hand counting (where margin of error HAS to be higher than a computer system).

[This message has been edited by wyvrn (edited 11-20-2000).]

[barry glisson]

wyvrn thats along the lines I'm thinking with a raid and tape backup at every precinct for hard copys or reproduceable votes. Most precincts probably are less than 5,000 votes so the storage wouldn't have to be all that large maby 3 gig each. Who has an idea for the software? barry

[DaveLewis]

You'd have to come up with a way for the dead people to vote ......

Maybe we could install a sensor to somehow discover their "intent".

[wyvrn]

Win NT 4.0 with guest account rights only. Software could be written by almost any company, heck I could crack my VB book and pop one out in a few days...