Electronic elections: What about security?
Voters put touch screens to the test
By Jeordan Legon for CNN.

People have jumped on the electronic voting bandwagon, thinking that will solve the problems,” said Avi Rubin, a technology security expert and researcher at AT&T Labs in New Jersey. “But these systems are largely untested.”
The problem, say critics, is that the software which runs the machines is proprietary, and therefore not open to public scrutiny. Without scientists being able to freely analyze the systems, election officials may be leaving themselves open to the possibility of hacking, vote tampering or incorrect calculations.

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(Via BoingBoing)

Georgia’s Electronic Voting, from a UI perspective

That having been said, it was a pleasure to use this system. I had no problems with the acutal use of the system: touch screen is a *great* choice, especially for handicapped & elderly users. Blind users pretty much can’t use it… but I think that as time goes on, having a “audio” version of the ballot (with headphones) would be an excellent alternative. The choices were clearly marked, and I had no problem with the system. It included a review page, and the opportunity to go back and fix problems.
Everything was clearly marked: incumbents were clearly marked, as was party affiliation. Names were also clearly placed at a reasonable type-size. Font face was a standard Arial-Helvetica type, which was annoying but understandable. Choices were also clearly marked: the touch area for each button was fairly large, making it easy to hit. (Ever try and use those stupid punch card pages? The punch card tools are about as unwieldy as a needle and thread. Using a finger instead is wonderful).

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Cool – I posted a rant at 6:30 am, and I’m declared insane in less than 30 minutes.
Beautiful.
Someone’s listening!
Success.
Anyone else out there?

According to this first election count (oh yeah, there will be recounts baby), Republicans have taken over the House and the Senate — mostly by narrow margins.
This election should also be remembered for its thousands of disenfranchised voters — in all states. As per usual.
We have a serious crisis going on in this country with our elections. I can’t even believe this is happening in the United States of America.
Please everybody, insist on the recounts. The news keeps talking about “sweeping victories for the GOP”, but when they show the percentages, some of them say “50% – 50%” with the Republican checked as the victor (often with no more than a 100 vote margin).
Remember that this is the same media that decided not to cover the 100,000+ people that marched on Oct 26 on both coasts.
It looks to me that none of these close victories can be taken at face value yet. There’s too much at stake here. Let’s investigate every one of them. If there’s something fishy going on, it’s going to take all of us paying very close attention, adding up the numbers, comparing the good notes we’ve all distributed to each other and coordinating together across all 50 states!
Let’s get to the bottom of this guys, while the trail is still hot!
Please send any articles and information you have to me at lisarein@finetuning.com about this and I will post it here.