Reply #24: I have over 35 years of professional experience ... [View All]

[TahitiNut]

... in programming (systems and applications of many kinds), systems analysis, and internal auditing. I designed and developed a relational database system for a Fortune 5 company (used globally for their internal financial planning and analysis) even before "Microsoft Access" referred to communications software. (Yes, it's a recycled product name.) I've written major portions of an operating system, several embedded applications, and many KLOC in several languages at various levels.

That said (not to argue genital size), I finally find at least one post in this whole "Black Box" clusterfuck that I can agree with 98%, reserving the right to quibble only over suitable beverages about some technical niceties.

What I can agree with 'scottxyz' most on, at least in spirit if not in detail, is his "modest proposal." While I continue to be entranced by the huge power and potential of computational technology, I am also keenly aware of its enormous susceptibility to egregious abuse. Compounding that susceptibility to abuse is the abysmal tendency of people to be seduced by "what the computer says" and find themselves incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff.

Paper balloting is, IMHO, the only way to go -- preferably with solely manual tallying.

Nowhere that I can think of is it more important that the greatest number of ordinary people fully comprehend the mechanisms of a process than in voting and elections. My God(!), even in as low tech a process as punched cards we saw the appalling amount of misinformation and deceit regarding that mechanism. 80% of the supposedly "reputable" rhetoric regarding chads was beyond laughable! This can only be compounded by an order of magnitude by "touch screen" balloting -- even if the code is (supposedly) open-sourced.

One of the reasons I've desisted in participating in the "Black Box" threads is the enormous "garbage-to-gold ratio" in those discussions. Wading through so much ill-informed and amateurish jargon has been bad enough just to observe. And that's just a minor example of the gibberish that pervades other such discussions nationally -- including the gibberish ensconced in actual legislation.