>I wanted to find out what you all thought about using ATM Voting for the
next general
>election?

As mentioned in earlier posts, no voting system is perfect.  All systems
have some degree of error.  (Given this fact and the closeness of the
Florida election, I am not sure that *any* system would have any error rate
low enough to make the Florida election accurate.)

We know what can go wrong with human punched ballots.  So what could go
wrong with ATM(electronic) voting?

- These devices need programming.  I believe it was in New Mexico in this
very election that one of the scanning machines was not counting
Presidential votes for those who selected the straight party option.
Whoops.

- These devices require electricity.  I think some Florida counties suffered
from some power outages.  If the power goes out, what happens to the
previous votes?  Some machines have a paper trail but printer errors or bad
ribbons could lose the trail and recounting would be more difficult.
(Although, I would bet that machine punched paper would be less prone to
error than human punched.)

- There must be an audit procedure to make sure only registered voters vote
and then only once.  Mailing PINs out to registered voters is expensive,
someone could intercept the PIN and you know a fair number of voters WILL
lose the PIN.

- Networked devices are subject to denial of service attacks.  An unattended
ATM could be put out of service in an area by an opponent if they know that
the surrounding population favors the other candidate.  One could also
intimidate others to not vote there just by kind of 'filibuster'.

- For Internet voting, unwary voters may go to an incorrect web address
thinking they were voting one way and have that server register your vote in
another.  (www.votehere.mi.gov vs. www.votehere.mi.com.  Hey, if they cannot
read a butterfly ballot, it can and will happen.)  Also, without proper
software control, ballot spoofing would bring ballot-stuffing to high tech.

- While going back and changing a vote sounds great, how do you guarantee
that it is not changed by somebody else?  Are you sent a notice?  This also
means the vote is not secret and can and will be used against you.  (see
next)

Finally, I believe this is the most important reason (as mentioned by Ken
Hirsch).  A long time ago, each State eventually decided to use the
(Australian) Secret Ballot.  Here all voting is done under supervision of
all interested parties, in public and the ballot remains anonymous.  There
are very good reasons for this, and probably the greatest was to remove undo
influence.  Why did they adopt this method of voting?

o Imagine it's salary review time, "Wonsil, time for your performance
review.  Oh, yea, bring your ballot."  Failure to do so could adversely
affect your employment status or compensation level.  The same could be said
for a union.  "Hey Wonz, we're all doing our civic duty down at the hall
tonight.  Come to the hall and we'll make sure you vote correctly."

o Imagine that your vote is not secret.  If you did not vote for the winning
candidate, you could be punished in an many ways through selective audits,
unfavorable zoning, police intimidation, suspension of city services or
other nasty things.

I am not against using technology, but I don't want to set ourselves back
over one hundred years in order count votes using newer technology.  Where I
would like to see technology used is in registration, ensuring one
person-one vote, and making sure the voter walks away with a correct ballot
(no under/over/spoiled ballots).

Mark Wonsil
4M Enterprises, Inc.