Friday, November 13, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Research Paper. Caution: Do no take seriously.
This is my research paper for my english class. Been a long time since I posted. Well, here you go. By request of our professor, we(the students) are supposed to post
our creative works online . I do not at all consider this creative, but I got nothing else to post so here. Grab what you can get.
Gideon E. Cascolan Jr.
Ms. Maria Carmen Fernandez
English 1
1 October 2009
Electronic Voting: for better or for worse
On October 13, 2006 in the Philippines, after nearly a year of long and heated debates, the Senate voted 13-0 and approved the Automated Election Bill.(1) Less than 3 years later, on June 9, 2009 to be exact, the Comelec awarded a P7.2 billion contract to Smartmatic-Total Information Management after screening several bidders. The country is about to take a big step in electronic voting.(2) Debates continue despite the announcement of the final decision; some of these are centered in the type of electronic voting machine to be used and the process the votes will go thru after the machine registers them. In light of these facts, it is only proper that the citizens of the country be informed of what exactly it is that they are about to do this coming elections and of the gravity of the situation. This paper aims to explore the potentials of electronic voting and to gather information beyond what the mass media in the Philippines have so far granted. It aims to see the feasibility of electronic voting in the Philippines.
History of Electronic Voting
An electronic voting machine is defined as form of computer-mediated voting in which voters make their selections with the aid of a computer. (3)
The first electronic voting machine was invented as early as 1960 when the punch card system debuted. The punch card system employed a card (or cards) and a device about the size of a clipboard for recording votes. Any voter would punch holes in the cards (often with a supplied punch device) opposite of the candidate or ballot issue the voter chooses. The voter would then feed the vote into a computer vote-tabulating device found at the booth or precinct. The two common types of punch cards were the votomatic and datavote card. In the votomatic punch card, the locations at which holes may be punched to indicate votes are each assigned numbers; the number of the hole is the only information printed on the cards. In the datavote punch card, the name of the candidate or description of the issue choice is printed on the ballot next to the location of the hole to be punched. Even in the punch card system, complication already arose as the punching of the card would sometimes be vague or uncertain, making the counting difficult.
The next electronic voting machine invented is the Marksense(Optical Scan) wherein the choices are preprinted next to an empty shape(to be darkened by the voter) in the ballot card. It is then fed to a computer-tabulating device at the precinct. The device reads the votes thru the use of dark mark logic, where the computer selects the darkest mark within a given set as the correct choice. Even the Marksense, like traditional paper ballots were subject to electoral fraud, ballot stuffing and possible force voting thru intimidation or threat. Any attacker who could gain access to the computer configuration can easily change the system.
The latest generation of electronic voting machines is the Direct Recording Electronic. It is an electronic implementation of an old mechanical lever voting system. As with the lever machines, there is no ballot; the choices are visible to the voter on the front of the DRE machine. The voter enters choices into electronic storage by using a touch-screen, push buttons, or similar devices. The voter’s entry is stored in the machine via memory cartridge, diskette or smart card and added to the choices of other voters. To make it more efficient, the DRE is connected to a public network; electronic ballots or vote data are transferred from one polling place to another thru internet or telephone or wireless connection.(4)
Potentials of Electronic Voting
{For the sake of maximization of this research, from hereon in this paper, the term “electronic voting” will be referring to the said public network Public OMR(similar to public DRE but using Marksense Optical Scan instead which has a ballot card) which is the type of electronic voting that will be used in the 2010 automated elections in the Philippines.}
Electronic voting has been said to have the following advantages:
Ease of Counting
Ease of Voting
Fraud Prevention
Cost Reduction
Status
Ease of Counting
Counting and tabulating votes are said to be easier in electronic voting machines and more accurate. It is less time consuming, less error prone, and supposedly less costly. There is no question that electronic voting is faster than manual voting, but its accuracy, cost, and vulnerability are definitely in question. Voting machines can finish the voting process in as fast as a day. However, the year 2000 elections of the USA in New York City which used voting machines cost $14.7 million for a mere 4,200 voting machines; despite the costs, 5% of the votes registered by the machines were subjected to errors.
Ease of Voting
Voter confusion is a common problem among illiterate and elderly voters. Some manual ballots are found to be spoiled or blank and therefore rejected. Electronic voting is claimed as able to make voting easier and simpler thru voter interface and the like. It has been proven that voting machines really can help the blind and disabled in voting. But while this may prevent spoiled or blank ballots, this will still lead to further confusion; the number of ballots that do not cast the intended choice might increase.
Fraud Prevention
Electoral authorities claim that DRE or other voting technologies can combat or even prevent fraud. However, election officials do not offer any compelling basis for these expansive claims, and no evidence exists for claims that DRE machines make an appreciable difference in the incidence of electoral fraud. More importantly, as will be stated in this paper, the use of DRE technology in fact creates dangerous new possibilities for fraud or allegations of fraud. Ultimately, combating fraud cannot be done by changing the mediums of voting but by a sincere change of heart on the part of the people involved in the elections.
Cost Reduction
It is often claimed that electronic voting technology reduces the cost of election administration. Such claims seem credible on their face, as we are accustomed to information technology measures that increase efficiency and thus reduce cost in a range of business and government activities. The cost arguments made for DRE technologies all rely on long-term projections, though, as the initial investment costs are recouped by lower ballot printing, transportation and staff-training costs. Despite this, there are no studies to confirm these projections. Repair and replacement of DRE equipment, warehousing of DRE equipment in secure and climate controlled facilities, salaries for skilled maintenance workers and trainers, and other continuing costs may well make DRE technologies less cost effective than people claim it to be. If voter verified paper records are produced, the costs of paper, toner, printer maintenance, and transportation must also be factored in.
Status
Many experienced technical assistance providers fear that election technology, including DRE systems, are deployed more to assert a country’s (or electoral authority’s) modernity than in response to any specific need. According to elections expert Rafael López-Pintor, “It has become a status symbol for many organizations and countries.”(5) This may become more prevalent as the U.S. adoption of DRE technologies is highlighted by the media, and as important developing nations, such as Brazil, Philippines and India, receive attention for their DRE technologies.
Failures of Electronic Voting
Most people have assumed that electronic voting machines will perform better than manual paper ballots and punch card machines which they will replace but research done by Michael D. Byrne, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Rice University, concludes that performance on DREs in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is not better than with older methods, and that due to the high rate of postcompletion errors it may actually be notably worse.(6) Many elections in Brazil, the United States of America and India have shown the Electronic Voting Machine at work and have so far failed to live up to positive claims. Matthew Bishop, a professor of Computer Science at the University of California wrote in an article that voting machines do not meet the expectations for correctness, availability, accessibility, and security. The machine vendors have flawed standards for the system designs.(7)
A Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Columbia University wrote that electronic voting is vulnerable to all the corruption techniques used in traditional elections based on manual operations and that besides this, there is an open-ended collection of electronic cheating methods that can be put to use by even just a relatively small number of people.(8) Edward Felten, Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, says that DREs are nearly the same as desktop PCs. Both have the same security and reliability problems; they suffer from bugs, crashes, malicious software, and data tampering. He reports that despite years of research and investment, PCs remain vulnerable to the same problems, so it is doubtful that DRE vendors will be able to overcome them.(9) Verified Voting Foundation, a voters’ rights advocacy, states group in its website FAQs that even a beginning programmer can write a code that displays votes one way on a screen, records them another way, and tallies them yet another way. These can happen even when voting machines have been thoroughly inspected and tested. Electronic Voting Machine systems experienced problems already in the 2002 elections, and this is clearly only the tip of the iceberg. (10)
The efficiency, accuracy, security and effectiveness of Electronic Voting Machines are yet to be seen in action. The words of election officers and machine vendors concerning the matter have not been fulfilled.
The 2010 Philippine Automated Elections
The 2010 Elections is fast approaching. The decision has been made and the contracts have been finalized. The people of the nation have been notified thru newspapers that the elections will be automated.
A memorandum of a petition filed by lawyers against the COMELEC’s automation of elections states several unheard of facts about the process of automating the elections. For one, an unconstitutional act was done by the COMELEC when they granted control of the technical aspects of the elections to SMARTMATIC instead of the Information Technology Department of the COMELEC. Also, the COMELEC was unconstitutional in granting full supervision of the electoral process to SMARTMATIC as this goes against the Filipino-Foreign 60-40 equity ceiling and the anti-dummy law. The corporation to head the automation, SMARTMATIC, is a foreign corporation, not based in the Philippines. In addition to this, SMARTMATIC did not at all fit the bidding requirements set by the COMELEC. (11) Lastly, the electronic voting system that is about to be implemented does not only reduce but decrease the transparency during elections.
But beyond the legal complications, the machines have not shown to be any better than the machines used in the controversial 2000 elections in the United States of America. Seeing how the previous manual elections in the Philippines have not been fully honest, there is serious doubt that automated elections will be any different from previous traditional elections. The pilot testing of the electronic machines in ARMM and the positive news reports give little comfort. We are continually plagued by the same questions; will electronic voting machines give the Philippines more accurate and honest elections? Will the costs such as training, reduction of transparency, constitutional compromise, and adaptation be worth the benefits? Perhaps we shall never be sure until the 2010 elections.
Conclusion
Electronic Voting is not and perhaps never will be perfect. Voting machines without paper trails or transparency will not give democratic elections. Electronic Voting machines have failed to live up to claims that they are efficient, accurate, effective, simpler, and less expensive. The question is not whether we can eliminate these problems – we cannot – but how we will cope with them. Unlike ordinary desktop computers, e-voting systems are entrusted with the most important process of democracy – collecting and counting votes – and must perform that process accurately, reliably, accessibly, and securely. Trust in election outcomes is necessary for the electoral system to work, but the political system often does not lend itself easily to trusting relationships. Voting technologies must help to build this trust. Today’s e-voting infrastructure is not up to the task, but tomorrow’s can be.
Works Cited
(1)Philippine News Service “Automated Election Bill Gets Nod” Philippines Today. 14 October 2006, n.p. 1 October 2009
“the Senate yesterday voted 13-0 and approved the Automated Election Bill, shortly before adjourning for a three-week break.”
(2)Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) “Comelec’s Automation to Worsen Election Fraud – Watchdog.” Pinoy Press. 27 March 2009, Pinoy Press. 1 October 2009.
Website: http://www.pinoypress.net/2009/03/27/comelecs-automation-to-worsen-election-fraud-watchdog/
“COMELEC grants P7.2 billion to SMARTMATIC…”
(3)"electronic voting." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 01 Oct. 2009.
“computer-mediated voting in which voters make their selections with the aid of a computer”
(4) Bellis, Mary. “The History of Voting Machines” About.com: Inventors. November 1998, New York Times Company. 1 October 2009
Website: inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111300b.htm
“Punchcards are votomatic or datavote….Marksense had failures…..DREs are connected to a network….”
(5) López-Pintor, Rafael, “Comparative Costs and Cost Management Case Studies Report” 2006. Getting to the CORE: A Global Survey of Registration and Elections (UNDP/IFES, 2006), p. 44. 1 October 2009. Print.
““It has become a status symbol for many organizations and countries.”
(6) Byrne, Michael D. PhD “Electronic Voting Machines versus Traditional Methods: Improved Preference, Similar Performance" 10 April 2008. HI 2008 Proceedings - Measuring, Business, and Voting. 1 October 2009
“performance on DREs in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is not better than with more traditional methods, and due to the high rate of postcompletion errors it may actually be notably worse.”
(7) Bishop, Matthew PhD. “Fixed Federal E-Voting Standards” March 2007, Communications of the ACM. October 1, 2009
“voting machines do not meet reasonable expectations for correctness, availability, accessibility, and security.”
(8) Unger, Stephen PhD. “E-Voting: Big Risks for Small Gains” 5 February 2007, Ends and Means blog. October 1, 2009.
Website: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/e-voting1-11-07.html
“E-voting is vulnerable to all the corruption techniques associated with traditional elections based on strictly manual operations. In addition, there is an open-ended collection of e-cheating methods”
(9) Felten, Edward PhD “Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine” August 2007, Proceedings of the USENIX Workshop on Accurate Electronic Voting Technology. 1 October 2009.
“REs have much in common with desktop PCs. Both suffer from many of the same security and reliability problems, including bugs, crashes, malicious software, and data tampering.”
(10) Verified Voting Foundation “Frequently Asked Questions”. n.d. 1 October 2009
Website: http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/search.php
“…a beginning programmer can write code that displays votes one way on a screen, records them another way, and tallies them yet another way. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including software and hardware errors, or 'hacks' installed into the voting machines.”
(11) Roque and Butuyan Law Offices. “G.R. No. 188456” 13 August 2009, THE HON. SOLICITOR GENERAL, DB LAW PARTNERSHIP, ACCRA LAW OFFICES. October 5, 2009. Web Document.
“granted control of the technical aspects of the elections to SMARTMATIC instead of the Information Technology Department … granting full supervision of the electoral process to SMARTMATIC as this goes against the Filipino-Foreign 60-40 equity ceiling and the anti-dummy law… SMARTMATIC, is a foreign corporation, not based in the Philippines... did not at all fit the bidding requirements set by the COMELEC.”
our creative works online . I do not at all consider this creative, but I got nothing else to post so here. Grab what you can get.
Gideon E. Cascolan Jr.
Ms. Maria Carmen Fernandez
English 1
1 October 2009
Electronic Voting: for better or for worse
On October 13, 2006 in the Philippines, after nearly a year of long and heated debates, the Senate voted 13-0 and approved the Automated Election Bill.(1) Less than 3 years later, on June 9, 2009 to be exact, the Comelec awarded a P7.2 billion contract to Smartmatic-Total Information Management after screening several bidders. The country is about to take a big step in electronic voting.(2) Debates continue despite the announcement of the final decision; some of these are centered in the type of electronic voting machine to be used and the process the votes will go thru after the machine registers them. In light of these facts, it is only proper that the citizens of the country be informed of what exactly it is that they are about to do this coming elections and of the gravity of the situation. This paper aims to explore the potentials of electronic voting and to gather information beyond what the mass media in the Philippines have so far granted. It aims to see the feasibility of electronic voting in the Philippines.
History of Electronic Voting
An electronic voting machine is defined as form of computer-mediated voting in which voters make their selections with the aid of a computer. (3)
The first electronic voting machine was invented as early as 1960 when the punch card system debuted. The punch card system employed a card (or cards) and a device about the size of a clipboard for recording votes. Any voter would punch holes in the cards (often with a supplied punch device) opposite of the candidate or ballot issue the voter chooses. The voter would then feed the vote into a computer vote-tabulating device found at the booth or precinct. The two common types of punch cards were the votomatic and datavote card. In the votomatic punch card, the locations at which holes may be punched to indicate votes are each assigned numbers; the number of the hole is the only information printed on the cards. In the datavote punch card, the name of the candidate or description of the issue choice is printed on the ballot next to the location of the hole to be punched. Even in the punch card system, complication already arose as the punching of the card would sometimes be vague or uncertain, making the counting difficult.
The next electronic voting machine invented is the Marksense(Optical Scan) wherein the choices are preprinted next to an empty shape(to be darkened by the voter) in the ballot card. It is then fed to a computer-tabulating device at the precinct. The device reads the votes thru the use of dark mark logic, where the computer selects the darkest mark within a given set as the correct choice. Even the Marksense, like traditional paper ballots were subject to electoral fraud, ballot stuffing and possible force voting thru intimidation or threat. Any attacker who could gain access to the computer configuration can easily change the system.
The latest generation of electronic voting machines is the Direct Recording Electronic. It is an electronic implementation of an old mechanical lever voting system. As with the lever machines, there is no ballot; the choices are visible to the voter on the front of the DRE machine. The voter enters choices into electronic storage by using a touch-screen, push buttons, or similar devices. The voter’s entry is stored in the machine via memory cartridge, diskette or smart card and added to the choices of other voters. To make it more efficient, the DRE is connected to a public network; electronic ballots or vote data are transferred from one polling place to another thru internet or telephone or wireless connection.(4)
Potentials of Electronic Voting
{For the sake of maximization of this research, from hereon in this paper, the term “electronic voting” will be referring to the said public network Public OMR(similar to public DRE but using Marksense Optical Scan instead which has a ballot card) which is the type of electronic voting that will be used in the 2010 automated elections in the Philippines.}
Electronic voting has been said to have the following advantages:
Ease of Counting
Ease of Voting
Fraud Prevention
Cost Reduction
Status
Ease of Counting
Counting and tabulating votes are said to be easier in electronic voting machines and more accurate. It is less time consuming, less error prone, and supposedly less costly. There is no question that electronic voting is faster than manual voting, but its accuracy, cost, and vulnerability are definitely in question. Voting machines can finish the voting process in as fast as a day. However, the year 2000 elections of the USA in New York City which used voting machines cost $14.7 million for a mere 4,200 voting machines; despite the costs, 5% of the votes registered by the machines were subjected to errors.
Ease of Voting
Voter confusion is a common problem among illiterate and elderly voters. Some manual ballots are found to be spoiled or blank and therefore rejected. Electronic voting is claimed as able to make voting easier and simpler thru voter interface and the like. It has been proven that voting machines really can help the blind and disabled in voting. But while this may prevent spoiled or blank ballots, this will still lead to further confusion; the number of ballots that do not cast the intended choice might increase.
Fraud Prevention
Electoral authorities claim that DRE or other voting technologies can combat or even prevent fraud. However, election officials do not offer any compelling basis for these expansive claims, and no evidence exists for claims that DRE machines make an appreciable difference in the incidence of electoral fraud. More importantly, as will be stated in this paper, the use of DRE technology in fact creates dangerous new possibilities for fraud or allegations of fraud. Ultimately, combating fraud cannot be done by changing the mediums of voting but by a sincere change of heart on the part of the people involved in the elections.
Cost Reduction
It is often claimed that electronic voting technology reduces the cost of election administration. Such claims seem credible on their face, as we are accustomed to information technology measures that increase efficiency and thus reduce cost in a range of business and government activities. The cost arguments made for DRE technologies all rely on long-term projections, though, as the initial investment costs are recouped by lower ballot printing, transportation and staff-training costs. Despite this, there are no studies to confirm these projections. Repair and replacement of DRE equipment, warehousing of DRE equipment in secure and climate controlled facilities, salaries for skilled maintenance workers and trainers, and other continuing costs may well make DRE technologies less cost effective than people claim it to be. If voter verified paper records are produced, the costs of paper, toner, printer maintenance, and transportation must also be factored in.
Status
Many experienced technical assistance providers fear that election technology, including DRE systems, are deployed more to assert a country’s (or electoral authority’s) modernity than in response to any specific need. According to elections expert Rafael López-Pintor, “It has become a status symbol for many organizations and countries.”(5) This may become more prevalent as the U.S. adoption of DRE technologies is highlighted by the media, and as important developing nations, such as Brazil, Philippines and India, receive attention for their DRE technologies.
Failures of Electronic Voting
Most people have assumed that electronic voting machines will perform better than manual paper ballots and punch card machines which they will replace but research done by Michael D. Byrne, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Rice University, concludes that performance on DREs in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is not better than with older methods, and that due to the high rate of postcompletion errors it may actually be notably worse.(6) Many elections in Brazil, the United States of America and India have shown the Electronic Voting Machine at work and have so far failed to live up to positive claims. Matthew Bishop, a professor of Computer Science at the University of California wrote in an article that voting machines do not meet the expectations for correctness, availability, accessibility, and security. The machine vendors have flawed standards for the system designs.(7)
A Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Columbia University wrote that electronic voting is vulnerable to all the corruption techniques used in traditional elections based on manual operations and that besides this, there is an open-ended collection of electronic cheating methods that can be put to use by even just a relatively small number of people.(8) Edward Felten, Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, says that DREs are nearly the same as desktop PCs. Both have the same security and reliability problems; they suffer from bugs, crashes, malicious software, and data tampering. He reports that despite years of research and investment, PCs remain vulnerable to the same problems, so it is doubtful that DRE vendors will be able to overcome them.(9) Verified Voting Foundation, a voters’ rights advocacy, states group in its website FAQs that even a beginning programmer can write a code that displays votes one way on a screen, records them another way, and tallies them yet another way. These can happen even when voting machines have been thoroughly inspected and tested. Electronic Voting Machine systems experienced problems already in the 2002 elections, and this is clearly only the tip of the iceberg. (10)
The efficiency, accuracy, security and effectiveness of Electronic Voting Machines are yet to be seen in action. The words of election officers and machine vendors concerning the matter have not been fulfilled.
The 2010 Philippine Automated Elections
The 2010 Elections is fast approaching. The decision has been made and the contracts have been finalized. The people of the nation have been notified thru newspapers that the elections will be automated.
A memorandum of a petition filed by lawyers against the COMELEC’s automation of elections states several unheard of facts about the process of automating the elections. For one, an unconstitutional act was done by the COMELEC when they granted control of the technical aspects of the elections to SMARTMATIC instead of the Information Technology Department of the COMELEC. Also, the COMELEC was unconstitutional in granting full supervision of the electoral process to SMARTMATIC as this goes against the Filipino-Foreign 60-40 equity ceiling and the anti-dummy law. The corporation to head the automation, SMARTMATIC, is a foreign corporation, not based in the Philippines. In addition to this, SMARTMATIC did not at all fit the bidding requirements set by the COMELEC. (11) Lastly, the electronic voting system that is about to be implemented does not only reduce but decrease the transparency during elections.
But beyond the legal complications, the machines have not shown to be any better than the machines used in the controversial 2000 elections in the United States of America. Seeing how the previous manual elections in the Philippines have not been fully honest, there is serious doubt that automated elections will be any different from previous traditional elections. The pilot testing of the electronic machines in ARMM and the positive news reports give little comfort. We are continually plagued by the same questions; will electronic voting machines give the Philippines more accurate and honest elections? Will the costs such as training, reduction of transparency, constitutional compromise, and adaptation be worth the benefits? Perhaps we shall never be sure until the 2010 elections.
Conclusion
Electronic Voting is not and perhaps never will be perfect. Voting machines without paper trails or transparency will not give democratic elections. Electronic Voting machines have failed to live up to claims that they are efficient, accurate, effective, simpler, and less expensive. The question is not whether we can eliminate these problems – we cannot – but how we will cope with them. Unlike ordinary desktop computers, e-voting systems are entrusted with the most important process of democracy – collecting and counting votes – and must perform that process accurately, reliably, accessibly, and securely. Trust in election outcomes is necessary for the electoral system to work, but the political system often does not lend itself easily to trusting relationships. Voting technologies must help to build this trust. Today’s e-voting infrastructure is not up to the task, but tomorrow’s can be.
Works Cited
(1)Philippine News Service “Automated Election Bill Gets Nod” Philippines Today. 14 October 2006, n.p. 1 October 2009
“the Senate yesterday voted 13-0 and approved the Automated Election Bill, shortly before adjourning for a three-week break.”
(2)Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) “Comelec’s Automation to Worsen Election Fraud – Watchdog.” Pinoy Press. 27 March 2009, Pinoy Press. 1 October 2009.
Website: http://www.pinoypress.net/2009/03/27/comelecs-automation-to-worsen-election-fraud-watchdog/
“COMELEC grants P7.2 billion to SMARTMATIC…”
(3)"electronic voting." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 01 Oct. 2009
“computer-mediated voting in which voters make their selections with the aid of a computer”
(4) Bellis, Mary. “The History of Voting Machines” About.com: Inventors. November 1998, New York Times Company. 1 October 2009
Website: inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111300b.htm
“Punchcards are votomatic or datavote….Marksense had failures…..DREs are connected to a network….”
(5) López-Pintor, Rafael, “Comparative Costs and Cost Management Case Studies Report” 2006. Getting to the CORE: A Global Survey of Registration and Elections (UNDP/IFES, 2006), p. 44. 1 October 2009. Print.
““It has become a status symbol for many organizations and countries.”
(6) Byrne, Michael D. PhD “Electronic Voting Machines versus Traditional Methods: Improved Preference, Similar Performance" 10 April 2008. HI 2008 Proceedings - Measuring, Business, and Voting. 1 October 2009
“performance on DREs in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is not better than with more traditional methods, and due to the high rate of postcompletion errors it may actually be notably worse.”
(7) Bishop, Matthew PhD. “Fixed Federal E-Voting Standards” March 2007, Communications of the ACM. October 1, 2009
“voting machines do not meet reasonable expectations for correctness, availability, accessibility, and security.”
(8) Unger, Stephen PhD. “E-Voting: Big Risks for Small Gains” 5 February 2007, Ends and Means blog. October 1, 2009.
Website: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/e-voting1-11-07.html
“E-voting is vulnerable to all the corruption techniques associated with traditional elections based on strictly manual operations. In addition, there is an open-ended collection of e-cheating methods”
(9) Felten, Edward PhD “Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine” August 2007, Proceedings of the USENIX Workshop on Accurate Electronic Voting Technology. 1 October 2009.
“REs have much in common with desktop PCs. Both suffer from many of the same security and reliability problems, including bugs, crashes, malicious software, and data tampering.”
(10) Verified Voting Foundation “Frequently Asked Questions”. n.d. 1 October 2009
Website: http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/search.php
“…a beginning programmer can write code that displays votes one way on a screen, records them another way, and tallies them yet another way. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including software and hardware errors, or 'hacks' installed into the voting machines.”
(11) Roque and Butuyan Law Offices. “G.R. No. 188456” 13 August 2009, THE HON. SOLICITOR GENERAL, DB LAW PARTNERSHIP, ACCRA LAW OFFICES. October 5, 2009. Web Document.
“granted control of the technical aspects of the elections to SMARTMATIC instead of the Information Technology Department … granting full supervision of the electoral process to SMARTMATIC as this goes against the Filipino-Foreign 60-40 equity ceiling and the anti-dummy law… SMARTMATIC, is a foreign corporation, not based in the Philippines... did not at all fit the bidding requirements set by the COMELEC.”
Saturday, August 1, 2009
hmmmmmmmm
ano bago?
friends. woohoo. rumami.
ministry. meron na. haha.
gf? wala. Xp
org? apps pa lang me. haha
sakit? wala na. ulet.
....
hmm...
Ah oo. mei facebook na ako! haha
Math long exam, Chicken! woohoo
uh...
well...
that's it.
hehe
Praise the Lord! :D
"You can never can tell"
-some pinoy
XD
friends. woohoo. rumami.
ministry. meron na. haha.
gf? wala. Xp
org? apps pa lang me. haha
sakit? wala na. ulet.
....
hmm...
Ah oo. mei facebook na ako! haha
Math long exam, Chicken! woohoo
uh...
well...
that's it.
hehe
Praise the Lord! :D
"You can never can tell"
-some pinoy
XD
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