[ILUG] Re: [E-voting] recap on the downside of DREs

[Timothy Murphy]

On Tue 12 Apr 2005 10:14, P at draigBrady.com wrote:

> > On Tue 12 Apr 2005 05:42, Catherine Ansbro wrote:
> >>    4. Unreliable due to:
> >>    --a. battery failure,
> >>    --b. power surge,
> >>    --c. weather conditions e.g. heat and humidity
> >>    --d. static electricity which interferes with proper execution of
> >>    program
> >>    --e. cosmic rays (yes this has caused extra votes in an actual
> >>    election)
> >>    --f. unpredictable breakdown
> >>    --g. can be networked even when they're not supposed to be
...
> > These kind of arguments would apply as strongly to e-commerce,
> > and that works pretty well.

> E-commerce/banking are of course affected by the above,
> but there is always an independent verification system
> (usually a paper trail). Do you not check your bank
> statements? tut tut.

I _do_ check my bank statements.
This is far easier to do over the net than it used to be.

My point is that most people find banking over the internet
just as reliable, and much easier, than banking over the counter.
So it is not a good idea to bring up supposed problems with e-voting
which do not arise in a very similar situation in e-commerce.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland