SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. SPAM: SPAM: Content analysis details: (5.2 hits, 5 required) SPAM: Hit! (2.7 points) Subject contains lots of white space SPAM: Hit! (0.5 points) BODY: A WHOLE LINE OF YELLING DETECTED SPAM: Hit! (1.0 point) Received via an IP in dynablock.njabl.org SPAM: [RBL check: found 200.244.200.151.dynablock.njabl.org.] SPAM: Hit! (1.0 point) DNSBL: Received via an IP in dynablock.njabl.org SPAM: SPAM: -------------------- End of SpamAssassin results --------------------- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: For Politech--Who's afraid of digital voting? Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 22:45:28 -0400 From: James Lucier To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> NOTE TO DECLAN: FEEL FREE TO KEEP MY NAME ON THIS POST, BUT PLEASE DELETE MY RETURN ADDRESS. IT'S NEW ACCOUNT I AM TRYING TO KEEP UN-SPAMMED. JIM Hello Declan: For a long time I have wondered how anyone who believes that properly constructed, authenticated, and encrypted paperless transactions can be safer and more secure than paper based transactions by any reasonable standard can buy into the theory that digital balloting can never work unless it achieves some impossible degree of perfection. I would like to call your attention to an outstanding new article by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, who has a book on ballot theft and election fraud coming out this fall. The link is here: http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005405 Money quote: "The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has generally supported electronic voting because the voters who are most likely to be helped by DREs are (a) the disabled (they can vote without assistance); (b) the less educated (they're comforted by the machines' similarity to the ATM); (c) the elderly (you can increase the type size) and (d) citizens with limited English skills (the machines are multilingual). Indeed, whatever problems DREs have must be compared to other existing systems. In last year's California recall election, punch-card systems didn't register a valid vote on 6.3% of all ballots cast. For optical scan systems, the under-vote rate was 2.7% and for DREs it was only 1.5%. As for the theories that DREs could be programmed to change an election outcome, Mr. Andrew dismissed them by saying, "the liberal Internet activists are bonkers." John Lott, an American Enterprise Institute economist who has studied election systems, adds that some of the obsession about DREs, "sounds a lot like an effort to anger some people into voting while providing the basis for lots of election litigation if the results are close."" _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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