The Problems with DRE Voting Machines- from OVC

[Melissa G]

The Problems with DRE Voting Machines- from OVC

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/shamos-rebuttal.pdf

A Deeper Look: Rebutting Shamos on e-Voting
Ronald E. Crane, J.D., B.S.C.S.1
Arthur M. Keller, Ph.D.2
Alan Dechert3
Edward Cherlin4
David Mertz, Ph.D.5
May 2005
A Deeper Look: Rebutting Shamos on e-Voting
Abstract
In his article Paper v. Electronic Voting Records – An Assessment,6 Professor Michael I. Shamos7
surveys a variety of objections to Direct Recording Electronic (“DRE”) voting systems. While
acknowledging and validating some of the most pressing, he breezily dismisses many others, often by
packaging them as straw men or by impugning objectors’ maturity, reasoning ability, or thoughtfulness. In
so doing, Prof. Shamos sidesteps not only key technical issues, but also important issues of
transparency, accountability, and the nature of the American democratic republic.8
Our paper identifies Shamos’s most significant errors, and also considers electronically-based voting
systems’9 security more broadly, especially compared to that of other electronic systems, such as
financial systems and gambling devices. We focus mainly on the possibility of vendor-sponsored fraud,
since vendors’ access to and knowledge of their voting systems, and their ability to keep their inner
workings secret by force of law, gives them unique power over how votes are solicited, recorded, and
counted10.
We hope that our paper dispels some of the unjustified trust currently placed in opaque, unverified, and
unverifiable e-voting systems.
1 A Taxonomy of Error
Shamos’s errors are of two main types: philosophical and implementational.

[Melissa G]

1. Has anyone read this paper on Paper v. Electronic Voting Records –

This rebuttal is a good piece of work for folks to bookmark as a source. My cut and paste from adobe pdf did not come out well, but check out the link if you have not read it.

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/shamos-rebuttal.pdf

[rigel99]

2. Excellent Post Melissa

Kudos to OVC for printing this excellent piece of work too!

[rigel99]

3. My Only Commentary

is that they go into brutal detail with 'scientific analysis'
when a gut check works and goes further to explain all problems with DRE machines...

SOFTWARE CAN BE MODIFIED WITHOUT TRACE

while paper ballots marked by citizens cannot be modified (unless by stickers or some other cruel trick that Ohio has experienced at the hands of a sick bunch of puppies in the OH elections offices)...

AT bellcore we talked about 99.999% or 5 nines of reliability and that for every million they spend in getting to 3 9's of software development that price is multiplied by 10 to get it to 5 nines (so basically, if the software cost 30M to create, it would be 300M to make it 5 Nines of reliability) or in other words this cost will likely not justify the cost to market such software to the industry, so therefore that is another economic justification for why DRE machines cannot and will not work for us....

[Melissa G]

4. Rigel, What are academics for but to go into Brutal Detail with

scientific analysis? Is it not what they live for? (chuckle):shrug:
:hi:

[Melissa G]

5. Email your concerns to them Rigel! They are a good addition. n/t

[sonias]

6. Excellent reference link Melissa

I'm going to use that for tomorrow. Very good points on open meetings
"paper ballots serve the same underlying democratic purpose as open meeting laws".

Sonia

[Melissa G]

7. Thanks Sonias.. The link was a gift from someone else.

I'm glad you are putting it to good use. It's a good paper!