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Overseas voter bill sinks
Rep. Martin’s bill falls victim to late amendments
Published Friday, May 15, 2009
A bill that would have allowed military personnel and their families overseas to vote online has died in the Alabama Senate.
Friday was the last day of the Alabama Legislature’s 2009 regular session, meaning that the bill will have to go through the entire legislative process again next year in order to become law.
State Rep. Jimmy Martin, who sponsored the bill, said the senate added “bad amendments” to the bill.
The first amendment was to prevent the transfer of federal campaign funds to candidates of state offices.
“Both the Black Caucus and the Republican Caucus were against it,” Martin said. “The Black Caucus didn’t want to obscure Artur Davis’ ability to transfer funds.”
The other amendment provided that the bill would go into effect immediately instead of 90 days after passage.
“[The bill] would still have to be cleared through the Justice Department,” Martin explained.
Martin’s voter bill, which gained much support from the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office, would have expedited the voting process for military voters and their families in select areas overseas through the Internet.
Currently, overseas voters who file absentee ballots often miss the deadline because of the time it takes to mail the ballots.
Martin said he plans to re-enter the bill next year.
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Posted by ncvoter (anonymous) on May 16, 2009 at 4:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The only way lawmakers could think internet voting is a good idea for anyone is if they DO NOT ASK COMPUTER SCIENTISTS. It sounds like these lawmakers only heard from salesmen. Computer scientists and IT security specialists oppose internet voting.
So we can trust internet voting because it relies upon "military grade" security?
Aren't the escapades of such as Gary McKinnon enough to show the vulnerability of anything connected to the internet?
Using a mere *dial up* internet connection and commercially available software programs - Gary McKinnon hacked the US Govts windows based computers.
He hacked into 97 computer systems, belonging to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense and NASA. McKinnon also said he determined that he was not alone in hacking these systems.
One US prosecutor accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/47...
Internet elections mean that the election is vulnerable to a hacker from anywhere in the entire world. The entire election, not just some votes, not just a few, but ALL of the votes -subject to change at the whim or skills of a hacker or group of hackers or various hackers who want to change the outcome of the election - either for giggles, or for great riches.
Then there's always the threat of the inside attack, but of course if you buy into internet voting, you are a very trusting person and you would never believe that anyone would steal elections.
Computer scientists are among those gravely concerned about the security of Internet voting. The signers of this statement are the opposite of Luddites:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.ph...
A couple of choice quotes:
"There must be reliable, unforgeable, unchangeable voter-verified records of votes that are at least as effective for auditing as paper ballots, without compromising ballot secrecy. Achieving such auditability with a secret ballot transmitted over the internet but without paper is an unsolved problem."
"The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy."
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