Maryland Testing E-Voting System That Lets People Verify Their Votes Counted

from the experimenting-away dept

For many years, David Chaum has been pushing for a voting system that he claims will be a lot more reliable. Basically, after you vote, you get a coded number, and then after the election, you can go to an election website, punch in your code and make sure that your vote counted, and was for whom you meant to vote. On top of this, there's a system for auditors to check to make sure that votes were counted accurately, with information released publicly so people can "audit" the election without being able to connect voters to their votes. This system tends to generate a lot of controversy (though some of it appears to be from people who just don't like David Chaum, rather than because they really have a problem with his system). However, the system hasn't been really tested in an actual US election... until now. The municipal elections in Takoma Park, Maryland used the system, despite the state recently signing a big deal with Diebold. It's not clear how the overall election went yet -- or how many people actually checked their votes online (approximately 30% in an exit poll said they copied down the code). However, it's good to see that some gov'ts are not just accepting what the big e-voting firms give them, and are willing to explore more sophisticated voting systems that aren't based on pure faith in the e-voting company to get the system right.

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Maryland Ramps Up Traffic Cameras... But For Safety Or Revenue?

from the gotta-be-the-revenue dept

While other states are banning traffic cameras after realizing that they're entirely about revenue, and tend to be less efficient as a way of improving safety, it looks like Maryland is going in the other direction. Tim DiPaula points out that Maryland is planning to increase the use of both speed and traffic light cameras, using the overall "better safety!" claim to get it approved. Of course, the fact that some towns in Maryland that already have such cameras brought in more money from them than the entire town budget seems to also be an important factor.

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Another Court Ruling Protects Anonymity Of Online Posters

from the it's-good-to-be-anonymous dept

Time after time after time after time we've seen US court defend the right to anonymity of people posting anonymous blogs or comments in forums. In fact, we were a bit disappointed to see a ruling in Texas recently go the other way. However, there are still plenty of other courts willing to recognize that right to anonymity. A Maryland appeals court has agreed that online anonymity is worth protecting -- and even set up some interesting guidelines that other courts might follow:

• Require that plaintiffs notify anonymous parties that their identities are sought.
• Give the posters time to reply with reasons why they should remain nameless.
• Require plaintiffs identify the defamatory statements and who made them.
• Determine whether the complaint has set forth a prima facie defamation, where the words are obviously libelous, or a per quod action, meaning it requires outside evidence.
• Weigh the poster's right to free speech against the strength of the case and the necessity of identity disclosure.

All in all, this seems like a reasonable setup, though I tend to think that people are too quick to call certain statements defamatory.

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EZPass Toll System Saves Tons Of Money... So Maryland Wants To Charge People For It

from the brilliantly-stupid dept

Electronic toll systems have become quite popular around the country -- and have been proven time and time again to be amazingly successful on both sides of the equation: they help ease traffic by speeding cars through toll booths, and they greatly decrease the costs involved in managing a toll system, by decreasing the number of toll-takers necessary. In fact, many states offer incentives for using such systems -- including here in California, where the tolls are cheaper if you're using FastPass (what it's called here). On the east coast, many different states have all agreed to use a single system, called EZPass, which I remember being quite popular (and useful) in New York many years ago. Maryland is one of the states that uses EZPass, but as Wayne White points out, that state is now going in the other direction when it comes to incentives: it's going to start charging you $1.50/month just for having an EZPass device, whether or not you use it. So, this great device helped ease traffic and should have significantly lowered the costs for the Maryland Transportation Authority, and it's response is to charge everyone for it?

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Maryland Suing Diebold/Premier For Money It Spent To Fix Its Voting Machines

from the pay-up dept

Things just keep getting worse for Diebold's e-voting subsidiary, that was laughably renamed Premier Election Solutions to avoid all of the baggage associated with the Diebold name. It seems that the state of Maryland is suing the company and demanding $8.5 million to cover the money the state had to pay to fix its faulty e-voting machines. You may recall that Maryland has been at the forefront in fighting Diebold/Premier over its machines. Back in 2006, following some rather damning info and significant problems, Maryland's governor wanted to get rid of all of Diebold's machines.

Diebold did its usual thing, responding to different problems, insisting there was no real problem and if there were, that it would all be fixed in time for the election in November of that year. Of course, Diebold didn't actually do much to help -- so the state of Maryland took matters into their own hands to try to fix the flaws in the machines, and now wants Diebold/Premier to pay for the costs of having done so. In rather typical fashion, Diebold/Premier has put out its usual response to pretty much any criticism: claiming it has no clue what anyone is talking about, saying that it is "puzzled by the timing and vagueness" of the lawsuit, while also saying it is: "inaccurate and unfounded." The company also says its about events that occurred "five or more years ago" (apparently, they weren't paying attention in 2006) and that "Maryland just completed one of the smoothest elections in the state's history," though the company fails to note that's more in spite of Diebold/Premier than because of it.

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Yet Another State Court Explores Right To Anonymity In Online Posting

from the you-can't-go-back... dept

We've seen an awful lot of lawsuits over the years concerning the "right to anonymity" for online commenters. While other countries tend to be pretty quick to take away anonymity, rulings in the US have pretty consistently allowed anonymous posting. However, the issue keeps coming up -- with the latest battle taking place in Maryland's Court of Appeals, where a business owner is demanding the identity of two anonymous posters on an online message board, who complained that the owner's Dunkin' Donuts location was "one of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen" on the site NewsZap, owned by the company Independent Newspapers.

Recently, in a similar case, a court ruled that a newspaper can keep its comments anonymous under the same rules that allow it to keep any sources anonymous. It doesn't sound like this argument came up in this case, but it might be worth considering.

But, more to the point, this seems like it could also be a SLAPP suit. The complaint was clearly a statement of opinion. And, of course, in bringing this lawsuit, it seems like all Zebulon J. Brodie has really done is draw an awful lot more attention to the fact that people think the Dunkin' Donuts he owns in Centreville, Maryland isn't particularly clean. Maybe he would have been a lot better off just making sure that it was clean. And, if he really felt that the message was unfair, why not just post a message pointing out that it wasn't true (hell, put up a photo) and invite anyone to come in and check it out. Wouldn't that have been a lot easier, cheaper and more effective?

Either way, Brodie chose a different route for whatever reason -- but as Public Citizen's Paul Levy argued in court, the issue with anonymity is that once it's removed, you can't go back. A court should be quite cautious and convinced that defamation has actually happened before removing that important right.

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A Public Official Actually Shows Common Sense in Wireless 'Piggybacking' Debate

from the we're-shocked dept

A state legislature has apparently introduced legislation that would make it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail to "steal" a neighbor's open wireless connection (found via Slashdot). The legislator claims that his goal in passing this legislation is to "clarify intentional theft vs. accidental use." Amazingly, someone in the Maryland government actually has some common sense. The state's public defender's office filed a statement making the same point that we've been making for years: "A more effective way to prevent unauthorized access would be for owners' (sic) to secure their wireless networks with assistance where necessary from Internet service providers or Vendors." Aside from the typo, we couldn't have put it better ourselves. They also point out that it won't always be easy to know if a particular user's usage of a wireless network is "intentional" or not because many non-technical users have no idea which network their computers are contacting. And, of course, some people leave their WiFi connections open on purpose. It seems better to err on the side of caution and not threaten people with multi-year jail terms for something that's basically harmless. The police certainly have more important things to be worrying about.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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E-Voting Undermines Public Confidence In Elections Even Without Evidence of Wrongdoing

from the conflict-of-interest dept

Are Republican operatives scheming to steal the election in Maryland this fall? Threat Level is reporting that the contract for transporting e-voting machines in the state has been contracted to a company whose president was the head of the state Republican party until 2006. I think the answer is almost certainly "no": while this certainly looks like a conflict of interest, I suspect it's no more than an honest oversight that will be quickly corrected. Still, it's troubling that we even have to worry about who transports voting machines. With ordinary paper ballots, it doesn't matter who transports them because there's nothing a moving company can do to undermine the election. But with e-voting machines, a moving company really could install malicious software that would undermine the election. And once an e-voting machines has been tampered with, there's no reliable mechanism for detecting the problem. Again, there's no evidence anything untoward has occurred in Maryland. But no matter who transports those e-voting machines, the public is being asked to take it on faith that they won't be tampered with. In a well-designed voting system, voters shouldn't have to take anyone's actions on faith. The entire process should be simple and transparent, so that anyone can observe it and verify that it was carried out correctly. The complexity and opacity of e-voting machines makes effective public scrutiny impossible, and so it's a bad idea even in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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