NYT distrusts e-voting now (and Photoextreme)

Vote for IT Blogwatch: in which the New York Times changes its tune about electronic voting machines. Not to mention the Russian not-Photoshop game...

The Grey Lady's Clive Thompson writes:

As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope. In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics ... they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices “flip” from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. [more]

Greg Mitchell adds:

This Sunday's cover of The New York Times Magazine ought to strike a chord. It shows a man inside an exploding voting booth with a WARNING label over it and the words: "Your vote may be lost, destroyed, miscounted, wrongly attributed or hacked" ... One expert says that "about 10 percent" of the devices fail in each election ... During this year's primaries, about one-third of all votes will be cast on touch-screens. The same ratio will likely hold this November, even with some states junking the devices. [more]

Brad Friedman feels (somewhat) vindicated:

We guess it's better than the Times original take on us, from November 20, 2004, which referred to election integrity issues as "the conspiracy theories of leftwing bloggers," just after we began investigating and reporting on the very issues which make up the basis of today's 8,000 word, better-late-than-never, New York Times report. We accept your apology. [more]

Joseph Cannon, too:

In late 2004 and early 2005 ... the mainstream media dismissed all such concerns as paranoia. Now, the New York Times Magazine has devoted a massive cover story to the topic ... It's good, but doesn't hit hard enough ... Why didn't anyone in the mainstream media attempt this kind of investigation years ago? ... Journalism delayed is journalism denied. [more]

Jill Cozzi says it should be required reading for all voters:

It's only eight years too late, and probably too late to make a difference this fall. But at least it isn't only "those crazy bloggers" ... talking about the ... voting apparatus that doesn't work, that's run by partisan hacks, using technology that precinct workers don't understand, that doesn't work properly, that is not secured ... And only now has it gotten into the mainstream press. [more]

Libby Spencer cuts to the chase:

While we're all distracted by the primary contests ... it's useful to remember that we still have a major problem that remains unsolved for the general election. We don't have a reliable, verifiable vote ... it's a major problem that will take time to fix. Many states have banned the machines but they're still going to be counting about one-third of all the votes. [more]

Poor Jackson Miller is frightened:

I don't know what is more scary, the bug Joel [Spolsky] quotes or the fact that Diebold would choose Windows CE as the OS for a voting machine. [more]

Mike Robbins, too:

I am totally shocked that even Diebold could screw up this badly, making systems that crash under normal usage conditions ... Look at the complexity behind these things! Keep it simple and they might have done much better. Why base something like this off of Windows CE? How many megahertz do I need to do a voting machine? Seriously, all of this extra hardware and software means more abstraction ... abstractions that can be misinterpreted and misused. For a system whose job is so simple, keep the product equally simple. [more]

And finally...

• Photoshop, Russian style [hat tip: b3ta; more of this "Photoextreme" nonsense at en.cx]
  

Buffer overflow:

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• Michael Kleef: Fedora Core 6 install on Hyper-V
• Sean P. Aune: Amazon Launches Software Download Store
• Keith Combs: "Email is for old people !!!"
• Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft restores Office 2003 users’ access to old file types

Other Computerworld bloggers:

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• SaaS Revolution: The State of the SaaS market as reflected by SaaScon
• Ian Lamont: Forget prime time: "Video snacking" at lunch creates a Web video niche
• Eric Lai: More on Sybase's "menace," Thomas Sandell...
• Mike Elgan: Packing for the tropics
• Eric Lai: Why John Chen should fear a boardroom battle over Sybase
• Heather Havenstein: On to New Hampshire: Will Internet traffic there predict winner?
• Mark Hall: Control your virtual machines
• Shark Tank: Warning: User-serviceable parts inside
• Robert L. Mitchell: OLPC to Intel: Get lost
• Shark Bait: Real-Life Space Invaders

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Huge spammer indictment in motown (and A:OLDJOKE.COM)
• Sears/Kmart spyware scandal (and Falkirk Wheel)
• So farewell then, OLPC CTO (and dm.ca)