quebec bans electronic voting Options

[Seeker]

http://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/en/nouvel...152&typeN=2
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/10/25/1324237.shtml

[GOB]

is hacking those machines easier than "losing" or altering paper ballots?

[Seeker]

is hacking those machines easier than "losing" or altering paper ballots?

Yes, especially in scale and mainly for two reasons.

1. A disgruntled programmer that works for one of the voting machine companies can insert hostile code to manipulate elections. This would affect elections on a wide scale across the nation. With paper ballots this is not a problem.

2. Paper ballot problems are usually localized in one small area or one county and carried out by someone on the staff. With electronic voting machines an external person can travel around to each county and change the votes with a thumb drive. Also all the machines use a modem to dial to a central server where the votes are sent. It's not to hard to intercept the packets between the voting machine and the central server or just attack the central server itself.

Any educated person can see paper ballots are 10 times more safe than electronic voting machines. EVMs introduce way too much complexity, chances for failure, and chances for security violations. Let's keep it simple, use paper ballots.