Indian EVM compared with Diebold
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Reading this article, some of you might remember that Cold war era joke, about NASA and its multi million dollar experiment with a pen that can write in micro gravity to solve the writing problems of astronauts, and the Russian solution of using a Pencil to solve the same problem. IMHO, the Diebold system is too complex for a simple and straightforward task such as voting. Windows CE, Modems, PCMCIA storage cards, Touch screen GUI, On-screen writing facility, Voice-guidance system, multiple language UI, DES Encryption, centralized voting Server, a step-by-step wizard to cast a vote, Microsoft SQL Server to store votes, Backup servers etc. are all unnecessary. All geeks know that a smaller and simple system is more secure, more code means more cost, more chances for bugs, more threats to security.
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full at –
http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-compared-with-diebold.html
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I’ll leave it to Ulhas to comment on whether the blogger Grant quotes has accurately described the fairness, accuracy and ease of use of the EVM system. Sticking strictly to technical matters though, I think this system sounds like a vast improvement (orders of magnitude really) over the Diebold approach which is built upon a foundation of complete dependence on Microsoft technology -- a mistake for so many reasons, I don’t have sufficient words to describe the full scale of the folly.
A simple design is almost always an elegant design and EVM’s system, as the blogger points out in so many words, is elegance itself.
Americans are, mostly, enslaved to Microsoft and whenever some technology initiative is underway, Microsoft operating systems and allied application platforms (such as the database product SQL Server) are usually the poison of choice.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s methodology ensures the opposite of design simplicity (ease of use yes, simplicity of design, no) and has lacked, from the start, a concern for security that has created a series of rolling, Internet-wide crises known as Blaster, Welchia, Sasser, etc, etc.
When you factor in questions about Diebold’s technical competence, trustworthiness and political allegiances -- which, conspiracy theories aside should be worrying to the sober minded – you see an American electronic voting system that seems destined to fail spectacularly.
.d.