[E-voting] Ohio to use paper ballots !!

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 January 2005 02:30, Catherine Ansbro wrote:
> >I said that this should be done "if there was a reasonable doubt",
> >which I assume would be ultimately determined by a court
> >if there were a dispute over the electoral officer's decision.

> On what basis would anyone be able to claim "reasonable doubt?"  

Lots of ways:
Discrepancy with other results,
Machine not working properly,
Failure to follow agreed procedure,
etc, etc.

I presume that is the case now -
if someone objected to an electoral officer's decision
they could go to court.

It's the only way to settle such matters in a law-based democracy.

> I don't think a judge would entertain our concerns--perhaps very
> justified--that someone might have tampered with election software, or used
> a remote dial-in connection to a tabulating computer, or changed a hardware
> component in the tabulating computer without anyone knowing.  

If you are saying you would go to court with the claim
that someone _might_ have done something
but you have no evidence that they did
then I imagine any court would throw out your claim.

I don't actually see this as very different from
lots of issues that go to court if no amicable agreement can be reached.

On a different tack, you are all talking as though the battle has been won,
and it is just a matter of deciding on the best system to use.
I don't think that is the case;
I can perfectly well imagine Minister Roche saying,
"These people are demanding an impractical and expensive system
based on conspiracy theories which I don't believe in.
I'm recommending we go ahead with the agreed e-voting system."

I believe it would be much better to put forward a minimal system
based on the current machines,
which does not lose the advantages of speed and simplicity
provided by e-voting,
but which would provide a safety-net in case of serious doubts
about the outcome of the vote.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland