Saturday, October 14, 2006

One small step for voting security

Cheating in competitions is hardly unknown. Cheating in elections isn't unknown -- in fact, elections use many varied mechanisms and checks and balances to prevent cheating. Hardly a year goes by without news reports of some illegitimate election in some place of the world or another.

The last six years of American elections show a series of "irregularities" pointing towards the likelihood of electoral fraud. It is very worrying to see some people still resisting calls to improve the security of electronic voting. There are many politicians seemingly in bed with voting machine manufacturers who are happy to sell machines with poor security.

So it comes as a welcome surprise to see a bipartisan majority of the US Congress introduce a bill to improve voting security. Of course, there is a long way from good intentions to actual good results, but this is a good first step.

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