Com 304
“ Rock, Paper, Computer” was a segment on This American Life that discussed the potential dangers of Electronic Voting. Jack Hitt narrates this first act of “ The annoying gap between theory…and practice” and his focus rests on the incompetence of our privatized voting system, and the ease in which it can be altered.
The piece explains that after the career damaging examples set in the 2000 presidential election, many voting precincts decided to invest in electronic voting machines and get rid of their old “ analog “ equipment in favor of supposedly more accurate digital technology. In theory, this of course seems like the answer to America’s voting problems. But, not unlike the lady who thought she could get away with urinating on the bus that Ira Glass brought us in the opening of the show, Electronic Voting might not work as well as we hope in practice.
Hitt begins by discussing one of the larger firms in the e-vote industry, Diebold.
As if scrutiny of the voting process was not already high, Diebold apparently left its program files for it’s e-voting machines unprotected online. While it was a mistake quickly rectified, many hackers found the files and began circulating them on line.
Hitt downloads the files off the Internet and, with the help of a friend, proceeds to open and adjust voting totals in a manner best described as beginner level. The surprise in his voice lends credibility to his claims of this event, since it is on the radio and we have no visual accompaniment, we can only assume that his ease in changing the files and then erasing his computer evidence was actual.
While the hacking is exciting, the fact is Diebold has created a new program and it will probably not be that easy to actually affect the vote totals. But there are other potholes in e-voting’s yellow brick road, as Harvard Research Fellow Rebecca Mercury
Is quick to point out in Hitt’s second interview. The biggest difference in the old and new is the fact that with e-vote machines, there is no way to both protect a voter’s anonymity and still provide proof that the votes were counted as they were cast. With the older machines, there was a paper trail that, while protecting individual identities, could still be used as a receipt of each voter’s choices. Computers do not have the ability to record anonymous data and then distinguish within that data, and there are no options to test the e-vote machines, unlike the lever and puchcard booths that were tested everyday before the public arrived. Also, the privatization of Voting Booths brings with it new legal loopholes. Pollsters are no longer able to test or fix machines, that job is now reserved for employees of the e-vote machines manufacturer.
Since computer voting seems to still be in it’s infancy, and with Diebold controlling the actual vote count on their machines, the only answer Hitt can find is a step backward. Return to paper. Diebold has claimed that it would be impossible to make an e-voting machine that gives a receipt to individual voters because of the possibility of the receipts getting stuck in the machine. This is an extremely flimsy excuse coming from one of the largest manufactures of A.T.M. machines in the country. I for one have never seen a wad of twenties hanging out of the local quikbuck. Hitt gives some examples of paper’s Americans have put their faith in in the past, the most notable being the Declaration of Independence, and also makes mention that in America we should never totally trust any form of vote-counting. No matter how fool proof it’s backers would have us believe it is.
Memorable misquote “ How did we manage to privatize the most important public event in America?”
This story reminded me of one that I read by Nicholson Baker in his essay collection. His dealt with the destruction of library’s card catalogue system in favor of the new digital equipment available. His piece focused on how librarians throughout history have recorded information on those cards, and how each one is a tiny piece of American librarian history. This is a similar concept to Diebold; sometimes it’s not just nostalgia.
“ Rock, Paper, Computer” was a segment on This American Life that discussed the potential dangers of Electronic Voting. Jack Hitt narrates this first act of “ The annoying gap between theory…and practice” and his focus rests on the incompetence of our privatized voting system, and the ease in which it can be altered.
The piece explains that after the career damaging examples set in the 2000 presidential election, many voting precincts decided to invest in electronic voting machines and get rid of their old “ analog “ equipment in favor of supposedly more accurate digital technology. In theory, this of course seems like the answer to America’s voting problems. But, not unlike the lady who thought she could get away with urinating on the bus that Ira Glass brought us in the opening of the show, Electronic Voting might not work as well as we hope in practice.
Hitt begins by discussing one of the larger firms in the e-vote industry, Diebold.
As if scrutiny of the voting process was not already high, Diebold apparently left its program files for it’s e-voting machines unprotected online. While it was a mistake quickly rectified, many hackers found the files and began circulating them on line.
Hitt downloads the files off the Internet and, with the help of a friend, proceeds to open and adjust voting totals in a manner best described as beginner level. The surprise in his voice lends credibility to his claims of this event, since it is on the radio and we have no visual accompaniment, we can only assume that his ease in changing the files and then erasing his computer evidence was actual.
While the hacking is exciting, the fact is Diebold has created a new program and it will probably not be that easy to actually affect the vote totals. But there are other potholes in e-voting’s yellow brick road, as Harvard Research Fellow Rebecca Mercury
Is quick to point out in Hitt’s second interview. The biggest difference in the old and new is the fact that with e-vote machines, there is no way to both protect a voter’s anonymity and still provide proof that the votes were counted as they were cast. With the older machines, there was a paper trail that, while protecting individual identities, could still be used as a receipt of each voter’s choices. Computers do not have the ability to record anonymous data and then distinguish within that data, and there are no options to test the e-vote machines, unlike the lever and puchcard booths that were tested everyday before the public arrived. Also, the privatization of Voting Booths brings with it new legal loopholes. Pollsters are no longer able to test or fix machines, that job is now reserved for employees of the e-vote machines manufacturer.
Since computer voting seems to still be in it’s infancy, and with Diebold controlling the actual vote count on their machines, the only answer Hitt can find is a step backward. Return to paper. Diebold has claimed that it would be impossible to make an e-voting machine that gives a receipt to individual voters because of the possibility of the receipts getting stuck in the machine. This is an extremely flimsy excuse coming from one of the largest manufactures of A.T.M. machines in the country. I for one have never seen a wad of twenties hanging out of the local quikbuck. Hitt gives some examples of paper’s Americans have put their faith in in the past, the most notable being the Declaration of Independence, and also makes mention that in America we should never totally trust any form of vote-counting. No matter how fool proof it’s backers would have us believe it is.
Memorable misquote “ How did we manage to privatize the most important public event in America?”
This story reminded me of one that I read by Nicholson Baker in his essay collection. His dealt with the destruction of library’s card catalogue system in favor of the new digital equipment available. His piece focused on how librarians throughout history have recorded information on those cards, and how each one is a tiny piece of American librarian history. This is a similar concept to Diebold; sometimes it’s not just nostalgia.
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