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1.  

   On the plus side.....

   

   Haywood, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 3:34pm

   
   

   It really doesn't matter who you vote for or who wins, regardless of party affiliation, they are all cut from the same cloth.

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2.  

   Boo Hoo

   

   Chris, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 3:57pm

   
   

   I'm surprised at techdirt. Are you implying that our free government and the trust we have in it is more important than keeping some companies "secrets" secrete? I am outraged that you would suggest something so bold!
   
   I demand that you withdraw your statements and side with the E-Voting company. If you don't, I may be forced to issue a DMCA, contact your ISP and/or take legal action*
   
   *denotes sarcasm

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3.  

   Re: On the plus side.....

   

   Fred Flint, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 4:03pm

   
   

   In a democracy, all voters need to remember they are only considered 'mice' by each of the political parties and what it all comes down to is whether you prefer to be eaten by a white cat or a black cat.
   
   That's not a racial reference.
   
   It could easily be cream-colored cats vs. calico cats but you're going to be eaten, whatever you think and whether you like it or not.
   
   I'll attribute this to Tommy Douglas of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party in Canada.
   
   By the way, he also thought up the idea of universal health care, so poor people wouldn't die quite so often in hospital emergency rooms.

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4.  

   Trade Secrets in a voting machine's source code?

   

   anymouse, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 4:03pm

   
   

   How exactly would there be trade secret information in the tallying source code? Common sense says that if a person votes for candidate A, you count one vote for Candidate A from that person, and add it to the current tally. There should be NO trade secrets in a voting machine, unless there is something fishy going on with data manipulation.
   
   When you pick candidate B, how many ways are there to indicate that you picked candidate B? Are there any trade secrets involved in that selection or it's recording? How can there be 'trade secrets' in a voting machine if all it's doing is recording and tallying the actual votes that were entered? The answer is that there shouldn't be, and all the protesting to the contrary is to keep people from reviewing and finding the real 'secrets' that are hidden in the voting machines source code (how it is programmed to ignore certain votes, counts them for the wrong candidate, etc - not that any of this would even be in the source code, unless the company was rather stupid, this manipulation is all done externally at the polling stations...)

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5.  

   It is Florida after all

   

   Joe Smith, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 4:23pm

   
   

   They should have cleaned house from top to bottom on their voting systems after the 2000 election.

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6.  

   Thanks

   

   Tom Mills, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 4:38pm

   
   

   Too many people do not understand the gravity of how the kind of, at best, technical mistake, and at worse, real conspiracy will affect the outcome of our democracy for the next who knows how many years. Saddly there are those that will exploit any opportunity to win an election at any cost. And those that would do that will Pay companies like this millions of dollars while the ultimate cost is paid by the citizens that sit by and let it happen.

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7.  

   We are fucked.

   

   GoblinJuice, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 5:14pm

   
   

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8.  

   Same old same old

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 5:22pm

   
   

   Another judge in some industry's pocket.

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9.  

   Shocked

   

   Ed, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 5:24pm

   
   

   I'm shocked.. shocked.. that people that have no clue about technology make the laws for it.

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10.  

    SIMPLE

    

    ScaredOfTheMan, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 7:55pm

    
    

    OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
    
    I am all for Free markets, but not when it comes to something so fundamentally important as tallying our votes.
    
    Anything else for e-voting is a joke / a conflict of interest / danger to our democracy.

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11.  

    Great...

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 21st, 2007 @ 8:37pm

    
    

    Now every E-voting machine supplier in existence knows about this decision and the precedent that has been set by it. The only thing that will possibly put this ruling under question will be if a few major elections involving these machines are contested.
    
    And sad thing is that most of it will be some sore politician that wants to cry foul.

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12.  

    It's because it's rubbish

    

    Geeb, Jun 22nd, 2007 @ 2:10am

    
    

    The UK ran a trial of e-voting in the recent local government elections. When the results came in, one particular area did a manual recount. They found that the e-voting machines had "discounted 56.1 per cent of all votes that had been cast."
    
    Half the electorate in that area didn't have their vote counted.
    
    If my machines did that, I'm damn sure I'd be embarassed about anyone else seeing the source code!

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13.  

    Re: Re: On the plus side.....

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 22nd, 2007 @ 6:08am

    
    

    we're a republic...
    
    a democracy would be fail here because our country somehow elected lil bush TWICE... i can't see myself giving more power to those kinds of people.
    
    where is our philosopher king??

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14.  

    Re: Re: Re: On the plus side.....

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 22nd, 2007 @ 7:09am

    
    

    reguarding Bush:
    
    Given the choice oh wait there really wasnt a choice hmm dumb or dumber which should I choose......

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15.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Jun 22nd, 2007 @ 11:53am

    
    

    Let's keep in mind that Bush did lose the popular vote...

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