OT: Open source voting machines and other gizmos (wasComcast and SORBS)

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Bob George wrote:
| Rich Braun wrote:
| > [...]
| > P.S.  We're *really* getting off-topic here... but while I'm at it, is anyone
| > interested in developing an open-source solution for global democracy?  (That
| > is, a voting machine that isn't controlled by any corporate empire?)
|
| I think we should start smaller. How about an open-source toll booth
| system to replace the dysfunctional stuff (manned and unmanned) in use
| along the 'Pike?

Not sure that's smaller.  To test it, you'd need a rather  large  and
expensive  test  lab,  maybe several in different climate zones, plus
years of testing under different weather conditions to make sure  the
equipment  could  survive.   Any  hackers that wanted to do their own
testing would need a large physical test setup.

Voting equipment usually works in a much nicer physical  environment.
There's  a  roof over your head, and the equipment isn't moving.  You
can do a much smaller test setup,  maybe  run  several  on  a  single
machine.   And  people  could  download  the  software  to  their own
machines, pretend to be a crowd of voters (or write a program to vote
in interesting ways), with no extra hardware expenditures.

I'd think that a  reliable,  foolproof,  open-source  voting  package
would be a lot easier to develop.  It would be primarily software, so
most of what we'd need is a good understanding  of  the  requirements
and the pitfalls.  And a flock of interested hackers to attack it.