Las Vegas Slot Machines vs Electronic Voting Machines

Scary stuff, but this is from 2006 and not all of these things are still true in all places. (States like CA require access to all software used on machines, for example.)<p>That said, these comparisons between voting machines and ATMs or slot machines are always a bit unfair. Slot machines and ATMs carefully log and track every action that every user does on them. In a voting machine, it must be <i>impossible</i> to tie a vote to a specific person. This is makes it a much trickier problem to solve.

I am sooooo glad I don't have to vote electronically. Folks here who flip bits for a living know only too well how easy this is to do. Changing a thousand paper ballots? Hard, time comsuming, messy. Changing a thousand electronic ballots? Invisible, silent, quick, untracable...

I think its worth mentioning that winner-take-all elections prevent you from getting your interests represented. So this whole debate is like fiddling with the alignment of your wheels when the car's no longer on the road.

All you need in a voting machine is something that can properly punch the cards. That's what the problem in 2000. You don't need to send the votes over the Internet or store anything on the machine. It doesn't need to be secure.<p>But you will need a PC that costs a couple hundred bucks. And a card punch machine that has been around for decades. In other words, commodity hardware.<p>Once you've made your choices and your ballot's punched, you should be able to walk it over to a completely different PC that has a punch card reader. And maybe its got software from a completely different organization. Did it record your choices properly? Confirmed. Now, drop it in the box.<p>Simple. No possibility for fraud and you got a paper trail.

Alas, the game is rigged in DC and the state legislatures. Regulation as strong as the slot machines is likely to be applied...never, at the current rate of change. So goes the gamble of democracy.

This is probably just a function of slot machines having been around for much longer.<p>Of course all these same requirements make perfect sense to implement for voting machines.

I never thought I'd say this, but the US government definitely needs to take a cue from Las Vegas..