The open source nature of the code is helpful in the long run, but it provides absolutely nothing in the way of assurance to voters. Ben Adida’s Helios Voting System provides voters with a cryptographic, verifiable receipt that their vote was counted. Commercial implementations or Open Source versions of this software would both still need to provide a cryptographic receipt. That’s your proof. That’s something that can support the weight of democracy.

Power Sharing Begins in Northern Ireland – New York Times

Before church, the president, clad in a tan cowboy hat, moseyed around the Rose Garden area, his dog, Barney, in tow.

Moseying. Clad. Tan cowboy hat. Towing a dog before church. It’s an impressive sentence, don’t you think?. I wonder how often George puts his cowboy hat on (“Lau-ra! Where’s my tan 10-gallon?”) before dawdling in the Rose Garden with Barney? It is an event that must be all the more awkward with three secret service agents in tow as well, as if they’re guarding some kind of important event that must imperatively take place.

According to a Knight-Ridder survey in 2003, 44% of Americans surveyed believed this. In September 2004, that number had plummeted to … 42%. In effect, almost half the population has a misconception about one of the most important events in recent American history.

For some reason, during the past two months, this number seems to have dropped off to around 20%, which I suppose represents some kind of an improvement that only 1/5th of America has bad information.

Should I be surprised about the information gap between the Kerry supporters and the Bush supporters? It’s a rhetorical question. Don’t answer.

lioresal