10-26-2014, 05:58 PM
(10-26-2014, 03:26 PM)ookpik Wrote:Quote:I think the electronic voting push is not typically associated with the US conservative movement.My point has nothing to do with the US conservative movement. The federal Conservatives introduced voting reform legislation a few months ago to combat supposed abuses in the current system. However they couldn't provide any real examples when asked to show why it was necessary. (Remember the MP who claimed he'd seen such abuses at a poll then quickly retracted his claims and apologized for lying to the House?)
I'm concerned that similar misinformation may be used by those who oppose electronic-voting. Hence my request for evidence of such abuse.
Electronic voting (even in person on machines, which is rare in Canada but exists in the US) is vulnerable to documented attacks, e.g.: http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/. I'm not aware of any such hacks being deployed in an election, but there was controversy about Diebold voting machine in the US: http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/index.php?/...-Bush.html (For what it's worth, Waterloo's voting machines are probably fine because you mark your ballot in a way that can be recounted by hand).
Electronic voting on home computers is better in some ways but worse in many ways, because computers aren't secure and because there is no simple way to guarantee the integrity of an election with secret ballots.
It's very different populations who oppose electronic voting than who aim to suppress voters. Voter suppression is associated with US Republicans, and the Canadian Conservatives have been following along. The anti electronic voting camp, on the other hand, is led by distinguished experts in Computer Science. Andrew Appel, a Princeton professor and a Fellow of the Assocation for Computing Machinery, is one example of such an expert.