electronic voting revisited

[Kurt Cockrum]

This is sort of out-of-the-blue, but it touches on past unresolved
topics of discussion on the scn mailing list, and maybe elsewhere,
like governance, and so I thot I'd post this while it's fresh on my mind.
I stumbled on this while I was browsing the CPSR mailing list archives
right after I recently took over ownership of the CPSR mailing list from
the long-departed Bob Mascott, incidental to majordomo cleanup on scn.

[ actual file = /home0/majordom/work/lists/cpsr-seattle.arch/cpsr-seattle.9610 ]
This is an excerpt (indented) from a report by Andy Oram <andyo at ora.com>
on the 1996 CPSR annual meeting and conference "Communications Unleashed".
It was posted on the cpsr-seattle mailing list in late Oct. 1996.

 >Return-Path: <andyo at ora.com>
 >Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 16:52:36 -0400
 >X-Sender: andyo at ora.com
 >To: cpsr-activists at cpsr.org
 >From: Andy Oram <andyo at ora.com>
 >Subject: CPSR conference wrap-up
 >
 For those of you who couldn't attend, I just got back from a great CPSR
 conference in Washington, D.C., "Communications Unleashed."  [...]
 [...]
 The last panel of the day was on a narrower topic than the others--but a
 critical one: the risks of using computers to tabulate votes.  Eva Waskell,
 ^^^^^^^^ ^^^
 Rebecca Mercuri, David Burnham, Douglas A. Kellner, and Peter G. Neumann
 detailed the weak points in the election process and the chances to create
 fraud.  It is mathematically impossible, according to Professor Mercuri, to
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
 guarantee that votes are counted properly while maintaining voter anonymity.
                          ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^                   ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^
 [...]
 Andy

In other words, *take* *your* *pick*, but you can't have both.

I could also dig up lots of citations from the RISKS list if anybody cared.
While electronic voting could be a useful groupware tool, I don't think
it's suitable as a high-stakes decision mechanism, and all the evidence
bears me out.  As some of you might remember, I was adamantly against
it.  I hope that buries the issue :)  Yes, I know I dug it up again :)
--kurt
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