Re: Diebold Global Election Management System (GEMS) Backdoor Account Allows Authenticated Users to Modify Votes
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004, Simon wrote:
> Sometimes, IMHO, there's just no alternative to pen and paper. Surely
> the manual method of ticking a box and having multiple human vote
> counters checking ballots is the best option going, even if it is more
> expensive. (I confess I've no idea what costs are involved either way.)
According to Elections Canada, the 2000 general election cost $200.6
million (Canadian dollars). But this included everything, including
maintenance of voter registries, reimbursement of expenses to
political parties and candidates, etc.
Source: http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=faq&document=faqelec&lang=e
In that election, there were 28,846,761 voters, so the cost
per voter was around $6.95 Canadian, or $5.43 US.
I suspect that the cost to actually count the votes is significantly less
than this figure. I have no idea what the figures are for electronic
voting, but I doubt it can be done for much under $4 to $5/voter.
Consider that the average polling station contributes a couple of
hundred votes to the total. So you can hire six people at $25/hour
for 5 hours each (two shifts) to man the station and count the
ballots afterwards, and you've spent $750, some of which you recover
in the form of income tax. :-)
Now how many voting machines would such a polling station require? And can
you buy a super-de-duper-de-luxe voting machine for $750?
--
David.