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Common Sense: Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced

By Luther Weeks on June 10, 2015

In one of his books, Gerry Weinberg pointed out that employee evaluations should be multiplicative not additive, that is, the various dimensions of performance and capabilities should be multiplied rather than added to determine the overall value of an employee.

There is an analogy with laws, including election laws.  Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced. Missing one of the three, all value is lost.

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Net of Insecurity — risks not anticipated by Founders

By Luther Weeks on June 4, 2015

The Washington Post has a new set of articles, interviewing some of the founders of the Internet on how the it came to be built with insufficient security:

“I believe that we don’t know how to solve these problems today, so the idea that we could have solved them 30, 40 years ago is silly,”…

“They thought they were building a classroom, and it turned into a bank.”

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9 things about voting machines

By Luther Weeks on May 29, 2015

The National Council of State Legislatures has a released a report on voting machines: Elections Technology: Nine Things Legislators May Want to Know

It makes a strong case for the importance of technology in elections, planning, and understanding the details. We especially an additional borrowed list within the report: Ten Things to Know About Selecting a Voting System

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Concerned with two partisan registrars? Be careful what you ask for.

By Luther Weeks on May 24, 2015

How to manage and judge our elections without partisan bias is tough. Occasionally Secretary’s of State act in blatantly partisan ways. Cases in recent history include Catherine Harris in Florida and Ken Blackwell in Ohio.

Here in Connecticut the Secretary of the State proposed turning elections over to a single unelected official in each town, rather than the current two elected registrars of opposing parties.

Meanwhile in Kansas a bill would give the Secretary of State the power to prosecute election fraud.

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The limits of Democracy w/o Information

By Luther Weeks on May 18, 2015

Last week Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, addressed the League of Women Voters of Northeastern Connecticut on a variety of topics. One of the items discussed was the lack of education in civics and its possible link to the lack of participation by younger voters. The two are certainly related, yet we also live in an age when the at least over the last two administrations, the Constitution has been ignored in the name of security – just when those voters have come of age.

Also I recently read “They Know Everything About You”, which I highly recommend. This week the author, Robert Scheer, was interviewed in a seven part series at the Real News. Part three is particularly relevant to the subject of Democracy and information available to the voters. <video>

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Too Reliable Computers: A threat to life and to democracy!

By Luther Weeks on May 13, 2015

Most people are aware of the risks of unreliable computers, yet tend to be oblivious to the distinct risk of too reliable computers.  If computers were as unreliable as people, we would not be at risk of excess trust and overconfidence.

One particular anecdote from lasts night’s Newshour highlights the risks of computers that are too reliable, yet not perfect.  When it comes to medicine (or robotic weapons) too reliable computers can cause harm, including death.  When it comes elections too reliable computers can kill democracy.

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Should we trust Internet voting? A Video

By Luther Weeks on May 4, 2015

A new video from a Princeton student.

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Non-Science: “What you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

By Luther Weeks on April 29, 2015

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

Non-Science Nonsense is bad enough. But even worse is what we all thing is true that is not.  Five examples from just the FBI and our common understanding, as articulated in The Intercept: Five Disturbing Things You Didn’t Know About Forensic “Science”

When it comes to voting, the public, election officials, and legislators believe many false facts,

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Elections and Voting Summit Joseph Kiniry: Technical Tradeoffs

By Luther Weeks on April 24, 2015

Last January I attended the annual Elections and Voting Summit. I was most interested in a presentation by Joseph Kiniry on Technical Trade0ffs. It is a relatively brief presentation, with some important thoughts: Online voting convenience vs. risks, transparent systems vs. proprietary rights etc.

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Internet Voting Roundup: At the Not-OK Corral

By Luther Weeks on April 18, 2015

Texas likes to do things big. But when it comes to Internet voting it is as they say “All hat and no cattle”.

We always tend to side with science and the best independent expert analysis, and tend to be skeptical of vendors seeking profit and officials looking for the easy way to look good.

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