post your Advanced Voting waiting time (Sandy Springs, Roswell: apartment complex, retirement, area)

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by billl

"Paper Ballot Has Md.'s and Va.'s Vote: 2 states plan to ditch electronic machines, part of a rapid national reversal."

Altho I believe this has more to do with the crappy product that Diebold is turning out rather than the technology itself.

Still, having worked with computers and the Internet for ..... well, since before there was an Internet ..... I am very cautious about any move to on-line voting. There is just too much room for abuse. And any tampering would be significantly more difficult to detect since it does not require any sort of physical presence.

Interesting, but I think in general, these types of objections are anecdotal, not based on actual problems but rather on perceptions, and there is no reason to be concerned if done correctly. If you have a bunch of amateurs running the system and leave ways for people to access and manipulate the system, then you can have issues. If we can trust billions of dollars in bank and securities accounts to online access, then I think we can figure out a way to authenticate people securely and allow them to cast a vote.

[LoufromNewYork]

Took 45 minutes at Welcome All Park in College Park. I got there around 5pm. A lot of people have already voted early, so I'd imagine that anyone doing it tomorrow will be saved a good deal amount of time.

[Westward]

The average person has no idea how many ways in which their vote can be programmed away. Without a piece of paper and manual punch hole to count, there is no verification or recount of anyone's vote.

Considering how much damage one president, or one congress can do, it's far more important to have the votes protected than to be technologically up to par or to know who won before morning.

Voter GA

I refuse to vote early, since I see that as one more opportunity for someone to fiddle with my vote before election day.

[MorelandWalker]

I decided not to vote early because my election day polling location is two blocks away, as opposed to driving to Adamsville. Why there is no advance voting location anywhere in central Fulton is beyond me.

[billl]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Registration fraud and the registering of voters is a completely different concern from the act of voting online. People would still need to be properly registered, but once registered, there is no inherent reason why online voting has be any less secure than banking online. You have a personal identifier and logon to your bank, you manipulate your accounts, and your money is safe. The key is that the bank is doing the proper things on the back end to make it that way. Even the government has the technology to do this now, if they choose to do so.

The weak link is the user, the lack of trust in the system, and the conspiracy theorists who will invent issues when their candidate doesn't win. The technology exists.

Given that, as recently as July of this year (2008), there was a serious vulnerability discovered in the way a key Internet protocol (DNS) was implemented world-wide, and that this vulnerability would allow a malicious attacker to hijack connections, I'd say that we (the software developers) still have much to learn about securing the Internet.

US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#800113

Until Internet security is significantly better than it is today, we cannot trust on-line voting. If money gets stolen out of your account through illegal (fraudulent or malicious) activity, the bank will (in most cases) replace it. If an election gets stolen from the american people, it can't be "undone", even assuming that the act of stealing it could be detected in the first place.

This is not an issue of perception or "lack of trust". This is the simple fact that the current software and hardware that drives the Internet just isn't secure enough.

[Saintmarks]

As much as I have defended Atlanta and Georgia while I am here in Texas, what is wrong with my beloved home state? Hate to say something that makes Texas look better, but I walked into the County Government Center here in Collin County (north Dallas burb, fast growing, population equal to Gwinett) at the lunch hour and was back in my car in five minutes. Easiest voting I have ever done.

[globalnomad]

I just got off the phone with my cousin in Florida. They can vote early at their public libraries. Isn't that a great idea? The kids can go off and read books while you vote. My cousin also reports the voting line was not long, there were enough workers to verify eligibility, and there was ample parking. In addition, voting is available all weekend long, a real boon for people who work and can't possibly take a half day off to wait in long lines at the polls.

[Leokitsune]

5 and a half hours, at the tag office on Roswell Rd. We got there at 8:25 and left a little after 2. I'm left wondering if waiting until Election Day would have been a better idea, after all.

[nerak31]

I'm wondering the same thing -- if voting on election day would be more efficient. It took 4.5 today in Decatur, from 3:30 to about 8pm. I thought Halloween would mean shorter lines, but that was certainly a wrong assumption! Since it was the last day for advance voting, I guess people wanted to make sure they didn't miss their chance.

On a positive note, I was glad to see so much enthusiasm and such a great turnout!

[trelane]

3.5 hours at the same place Leokitsune visited, but I got there around 7:45 am.

I wonder the same thing, but I have voted and that's the important thing.

How great a lesson on the true values and privileges of the United States is it for our kids to watch their parents stand in line for hours just to cast a single vote?