we can send humans to the moon...

[hammercock]

We can send rovers to Mars.
We can photograph the beginnings of the cosmos.
We can manipulate genes.
We can perform intricate surgeries with robots.
Apparently, though, we cannot manage to create a working, trustworthy electronic voting machine.

I'll stick with my paper optiscan ballots, thanks.

Thanks to kathrynt for the link.

Comments

[kathrynt]

Tell people who use these machines to video their vote!

[bikergeek]

Diebold is one of the leading manufacturers of automatic teller machines in the United States. Go up to a random ATM at any bank branch and it's about even money that it's a Diebold. Banks, and their customers, trust these machines to dispense cash accurately, and have done so for 25 to 30 years. (Really. How many stories have you heard of ATMs dispensing the wrong amount? They're rare.)

That company, with that level of experience, cannot seem to make an accurate, secure voting machine.

[ron_newman]

I once had a BayBank machine half-spit-out an extra $20 bill when I withdrew $60. I had to yank the bill hard to get it all the way out. But that's the only such incident to ever happen to me in 25+ years of using ATMs.

[browngirl]

In 2003, Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold, "told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is 'committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.'" Somehow, I find myself wondering if it's that they can't make a secure voting machine, as opposed to won't.

[_nicolai_]

It's worse than that:
You want to send humans to the moon and you're willing to pay for it.
You want to send rovers to mars and you're willing to pay for it.
You can photograph the beginnings of the cosmos and you want to pay for it.
You can manipulate genes and you want to put the effort into it.
You can perform intricate surgeries with robots because you try hard to do it.

But you don't care enough about reliable electronic voting to pay for it, or work hard at it. Voting is much less important to you than all these other things.

[perspicuity]

Photos of the beginning of the cosmos are being refined; the initial photos may one day be seen as gorgeous failures (like the maps of the west coast of North America which show California as a detached island).

actually, hubble was completely fucked when they first built it. they didn't perform a cheap$ test to determine ANY error, and the not-cheap$ test indicated it was "okay" (just negative, iirc).

oops.

we have screwed the pooch on some space attempts, most notably after having reached the moon. our early satellites where champions. several (many) recent ones, not so good.

learning through failure is useful, but people seem to forget the failures very quickly.

apple computer for instance, has had spectacular instances of failure. still do :) nobody seems to care though. in comparison, other companies managed to never have such things happen, but nobody notes their quality.

interestingly, some companies, having failed once at something, nobody forgets. ever.

#