Open Government Dialogue
« Back To OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

David Langer

User Profile Image David Langer
Member since : May-27-2009 (Verified)
3 Ideas, 59 Comments, 227 Votes

User Activity Stream

Ideas Posted

This site over the past few days shows the potential for abuse of any electronic forum. In my opinion, the site should be frozen, with only voting or commenting on posts allowed. Since the brainstorming session was supposed to have ended anyway...

A new site should be developed that provides a lot more protection against spamming ideas over and over. There is a lot that one can do with the concept of electronic karma (good actions, which is to say using the site responsibly, on the site give access to functionality, bad actions, electronic spamming, harassment, extreme vulgarity or disrespect, threats, place restrictions to functionality). Also, a more robust account set up. When flagging a post as duplicate / spam / inappropriate, require:

1. A link to another post that is the duplicate. A search form could be provided for this purpose, if it is a duplicate it should be searchable quickly, or a place to past a link could be provided.
2. A link to a few other duplicate posts by the same user in a short period of time to indicate spam.
3. The reason you feel something is inappropriate.

Also, consider breaking out duplicate / spam posting into a seperate section of the site, for instance, create a SPAM and a DUPLICATE category. People are complaining about openness when you remove posts. They have a point. Instead, move them into a seperate section that folks who enjoy that kind of thing can use and verify that yes their postings are still available, but those users who want to use the site as intended can not be harassed (too much... there is some level of harassment that cannot be avoided when attempting to deal with people who like to harasser and annoy others in a respectful manner) by it. It MAY (and I emphasize MAY) prevent some users from spamming posts. At the very least, they can longer claim that they are being censored. It may also clue some people in as to what spamming is and how rude it can be.

This seems like an excellent time to review the posts on how this site and this process in particular can be improved.
This note, "Please note: On Saturday morning, we made a small change to this site. Posting, commenting and voting on ideas now requires users to log in. This change was made in response to concerns that settings that allowed anonymous posting may also have allowed users to vote more than once on the same idea." while nice, doesn't get at the root of the problem. A given *individual* may still vote multiple times, all they need to do is obtain additional email addresses to register with.

This is a basic problem with allowing 'online voting' based on registration from an email address. Anyone even remotely internet savvy can obtain multiple votes if they so desire.

For an 'idea swapping' interface, this is not a huge issue. However, it does mean that results can be skewed to not represent the actual will of the people.

Thank you for trying.

If you want to restrict one vote per individual, you will need to do some basic level of identity checking for new registrations. This would require:

1. A secure web site for setting up new accounts, at the very least.
2. A verification process that an individual should be allowed to create an account (using SSN if nothing else, but more robust would be to have the user verify their income and taxes for the previous year(s), which is information the government should have on file already), and also verifying that the identifier (in the example, SSN) has not been registered before.

Account identifers could be completely abitrary after the verification process was performed so that sensitive data for the account set up process was not required to be submitted all the time.
We should create a network of electronic voting kiosks (EVK), similar to ATMs that are everywhere across the world. However, these EVKs must be owned and maintained by the government, without any influence by private business. The ownership of the vote must be by the people, hence, only our government should be able to administer and maintain our voting system, electronic or paper based.

The most important aspect of the software that runs on these EVKs is that is must be open source (that is the source code can be read and reviewed by anyone. This is so that 'we the people' can review the code that is doing the work powering our democracy) and the software compilation and installment process must be openly reviewable by both Congress and private citizens. The open source caveat must also apply to the operating system of the EVKs, there must be no private business proprietary software in the units. This could be end point verifiable by private citizens being able to use freely downloadable software and a common interface for obtaining information (only! there should be no mechanism for private citizens to upload data to the kiosk, the only data the kiosk should record is voting data via the display) about the software running on the kiosks. The downloadable verification software could then independantly report a verification message to the government with the kiosk id, citizen id and authentication tokens and verification results. Actions could be taken upon the kiosk upon the results of these verifications such as shutting down the unit until government technicitians are able to service the unit, subjecting any votes cast by the unit to manual scrutiny, prompting further citizens attempting to use the unit to perform additional verifications and submit results until the unit is serviced or it is determined that someone submitted a false report (at which point the false report could be investigated as election tampering).

This would provide a high level of faith in the system, in that anyone could run end point verifications. Also anyone could review the source code of these systems and the government records of EVK servicing.

The reason for using a kiosk network instead of making access available to home computers is twofold: first it allows access to anyone, second it provides a high level of voter security.

In terms of access to anyone, it is important that participation in our democracy not be restricted to those affluent / technologically savvy enough to be able to afford / use a computer. An ATM-like kiosk should be simple enough to use that anyone should be able to participate. For those citizens living abroad, we should be able to set up these EVKs in our consulates in foreign countries at the very least. I am certain that there are other places that could be identified to make these places available to citizens abroad. Obviously we should not take United Nations assistance for granted, but it seems likely we would be able to work something out with the UN to expand our democratic participation.

It will be a matter of utmost importance to verify the identity of people logging in to system to record their votes. It is likewise of utmost importance to prevent electronic tampering with the system. The EVKs, being kiosks with very limited input capability and with almost no contact to the internet at large would be very secure and not subject to the vagaries of viruses, worms, keystroke-loggers and such that plague the common home computer. This would provide a high level of reassurance to the public that their voting system is not being tampered with.

The EVKs would be located in post offices, public libraries and possibly government buildings as well.

Obviously, tampering with this system would need to be made a federal crime with stiff penalties.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 4205 Ideas
12345678910….168169Next »

Comments Posted

David Langer 9 months ago
Agreed Ladyhawk. I saw one user who was posting the exact same BC 'idea' word-for-word every 2 minutes. That was probably how long it took for his browser to refresh and copy / paste the thing back in. I reported about 10 of their posts as Spam. A simple check to see if the text matched exactly any other existing idea would prevent that kind of posting.

Obviously, there's plenty of other auto-check logic that could be done along these lines. If that sort of thing is built in, they haven't turned it on...
David Langer 9 months ago
Wow! Welcome back Draco! How was Athens?
David Langer 9 months ago
The most duplicated / spammed item has been about Obama's Birth Certificate. Most of us who want the site to remain about new ideas have been dutifully flagging these 'new ideas' (which I think is a poor term for such posting) and the moderators have been dutifully removing the duplicate topics.

The most requested item is http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2459-4049 currently with a positive vote count of 1005. And that is including 182 negative votes. The only way to get to a very high vote count for your issue is to have 1 'idea' on the subject, and have everyone who supports it vote it up.

Of course, that also means you would then get an accurate depiction of who doesn't agree with it, which is why I suspect that this hasn't been done on that particular subject.

If you have 100 'ideas' on the subject, and each one has 100 positive votes, you do not have a net result of 10,000 votes on the subject. You can only reliably say you have 100 votes on the subject. To see how many overall votes you have, you would need to cross-reference the individual voters, to eliminate duplicates.

If you want to make your point, find 1 idea on the subject, I'd suggest the one with the most net positive votes currently and point everyone who wants to support it to that one idea to vote it up. If you can get one idea on that subject to be the highest net positive rating, at that point you can say that it is the most requested.

It's kind of like doing a voice vote versus a counted vote. The folks who are posting duplicate ideas and spamming ideas on the same subject over and over are effectively trying to do a voice vote and screaming their loudest so that someone listening will say, 'they're the loudest, therefore that's what the most folks want!' Which is a bogus way to vote, and I hope anyone who believes in Democracy understands that. It is what I did when I studied 'parliamentary procedures' back in middle school and we tried doing voice votes in the class. I screamed my head off with everyone else to try to drown out the other side.

Um... yeah.

However, the individual ideas with the most numbers are the ones that actually have the support of the most people, because they count the individual votes, instead of just pandering to whomever has the loudest people yelling for them.
David Langer 9 months ago
Since this idea is in regards to this particular site, and this particular site is about the people providing ideas about government to the government, and people are the ones reporting on if they think posts are duplicate / spam / inappropriate, I'd suggest that nothing is being actually censored.

I flagged this as censorship because of the portion about the 'moderators' (for lack of a better term) removing duplicated postings, as some people may feel like it is. I disagree, but respect their thoughts on the matter.
David Langer 9 months ago
My idea of tax information as a verification scheme shouldn't be *that* bad. Most people file their taxes, and most people keep their records in a reasonably well known location. As far as the government side, a computer should be able to do this no problem.

I fully acknowledge that tax info is probably not the best option, that's just what my mind was hung on at the moment.

However, drivers licenses, passports, having people register for it with other pieces of valid documentation are also options. These are things that are much more common to have around. Again, the government has this information already, creating a computer program to do the verification is not that hard once you have the data on both sides to verify.

My one concern about passing license info / passport info to a 'secure' web site is that if folks have malware (keystroke loggers, or web site redirections) on their home computers when they do this, it could lead to problems. But in that case maybe you need to sign up for your account over the phone, or at a public building. But that's probably only worrisome if you are really paranoid about electronic security. Which I suppose I am.
David Langer 9 months ago
I think allowing folks the ability to post what they want is good. However, the idea of a karma system is such that, if you have been identified as a spammer (via the Flag Spam tool, as I suggest above requiring references to other items to prove the spam and then a forum moderator reviews the reports to confirm that the person reporting abuse is not abusing the report spam functionality, the reported posts could be electronically checked to ensure they are from the same user for this case very easily), you get an amount of negative karma points. If you have less than 0 karma points, you cannot post new topics. This is the restricted functionality of the site because you have not been using it appropriately.

However, let's say the spammer saw the error of their ways and started voting for topics and posting comments. This is good usage of the site and they start gathering good karma points. At some point their good karma outweighs the bad and they go above 0, they are now able to post topics again.

If they post new ideas, instead of spamming, they continue to get good karma, and no issues. However, if they return to spamming, they will get flagged again and gather more bad karma. If they go below 0, again, their ability to post new ideas is restricted. Possibly for a second spamming instance they get more bad karma than the first offense.

I suppose you could say that my reference to forum moderators is your 'Sotrm Trooper', but if the entire process is open, then there shouldn't be a problem. The posted who got so flagged will be able to see their post, that 10 people flagged it as spam, referring to 4 other posts that the spammer made within 15 minutes of each other and on the same topic and that a moderator upheld the spam report, with a resultant loss of karma.

Would you consider that level of visibility into the process a 'Storm Trooper censor'?
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."

So unless you are accusing the government of Hawaii of 'lying' in the issuance of the Short Form Birth Certificate, please think again about your position.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

From Birth Certificate link:
"Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration"."

And

"When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances."
David Langer 9 months ago
Art, there is such thing as a long form birth certificate. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

Notice in there:

"Short forms, known sometimes as computer certifications, are not universally available, but are cheaper than photocopies and much more easily accessible. Limited information is taken from the original birth record (the long form) and stored in a database that can be accessed quickly when birth certificates are needed in a short amount of time. Whereas the long form is a copy of the actual birth certificate, a short form is a document that certifies the existence of such certificate, and is given a title such as "Certification of Birth" or "Certificate of Birth Registration". The short form typically includes the child's name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth, although some also include the names of the child's parents. When the certification does include the names of the parents, it can be used in lieu of a long form birth certificate in almost all circumstances. Nearly all states in the U.S. issue short forms certifications, on both state and local levels."

That's why the short form in this case is perfectly acceptable.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
Celebrate Columbus Day. That celebrates the arrival of Columbus, a white person, to the Americas. Problem solved.
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
Faith, I'm not taking off postings, I'm just flagging postings as being duplicate topics. Any user on this board can do the same, ergo: I'm nobody special in this regard. If enough users flag a posting as being a duplicate, the system will remove it. It is a sort of policing mechanism given to everybody so that contributors to the site can determine for themselves what are and what are not new ideas.
David Langer 9 months ago
Fact Check.org has a piece on this as well: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
David Langer 9 months ago
Agreed, and a way to remove specific categories from the All section.
David Langer 9 months ago
There is a feature of the board that allows users to flag posts as 'duplicates' of other posts. In the case of the BC red herring, it has been posted many times. Those of us who actually want to see new ideas and get annoyed at people not searching to see if someone else has posted their topic first and just keep creating new postings, even though they aren't new ideas, use it so that the duplicates can get cleaned up by the forum.
David Langer 9 months ago
'faith', I am not taking off your postings. If you had bothered to search about your topic, you would find that there have been many people posting that topic. It is therefore a 'duplicate'. I am flagging it as such so that the people who review this forum for 'new' ideas will see that yours is not one and therefore can remove it and the bunch like it from the works so that other, actually new, ideas might get to see the light of day.

Be well. Please be a good netizen and use the search functionality before creating additional topics that have already been posted... in the case of your topic, many times.
David Langer 9 months ago
Nuclear power is the dirtiest form of energy there is. The radioactive waste stays around for how long exactly?
David Langer 9 months ago
Flagged as duplicate. If you don't actually have new ideas, don't bother posting.
David Langer 9 months ago
Flagged as duplicate. If you don't actually have new ideas, don't bother posting.
David Langer 9 months ago
Flagged as duplicate. If you don't actually have new ideas, don't bother posting.
David Langer 9 months ago
Flagged as duplicate. If you don't actually have new ideas, don't bother posting.
David Langer 9 months ago
Anything web based, and accessible from any home computer is effectively insecure. Given the level of malware that can infect home computers, for example keystroke loggers and site redirections could wreak havoc on the security of a system based on a web site.

I would posit that similar things are true for cell phones, in that software can be downloaded to many of the phones by the company that owns the phones without customer knowledge.

If you are referring to a different physical device, distinct from the home computer or personal handheld device common in these times that would be provided to all citizens... Assuming it could not be used for other stuff than what the government provides for it to do... I could discuss the security level of that sort of device further without feeling a need to discount it off hand as I would do regarding personal computers or the like. However, I would suggest that providing a government funded device to all citizens, to be replaced in case of damage, malfunction, loss... would have a high cost.
David Langer 9 months ago
This is my suggestion of how we might go about moving to secure, electronic voting: http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3554-4049
David Langer 9 months ago
If a parent doesn't know something, how can they teach their kid? Having the educational system ensure that all kids are taught something that we all agree is of basic usefulness breaks the cycle of poor parenting creating more poor parents.

I'm all for parental involvement with their kids, but by saying it is the responsibility of parents to teach their kids basic stuff like 'financial literacy', you are essentially saying that kids with ignorant (at some level) parents must be punished. Either that or you can say that it sucks for the kids, too bad. Either way doesn't seem very compassionate to me.

Just putting up food for thought.
David Langer 9 months ago
As your arguments seem to be that it is impossible to design the perfect electronic system and therefore that we cannot ever have an electronic system, I will begin by saying that I do not agree with your conclusion. I will grant that a perfect electronic system that will 100% prevent any possibility of tampering with it is impossible. However, I do not think that is cause to not pursue the best that we can do, which given proper controls and design, is pretty darn good.

In regards to malicious code hiding in plain sight: enough eyes on the problem should enable us to find these flaws. Moreover, find people to work on the system who have integrity and a belief in what they are doing and you should eliminate up front the possibility of this occurring.

I will certainly agree with you that US voting is not fair. I am not suggesting that this solution will make the system more fair. I am suggesting that this solution will encourage involvement and, if implemented, will allow broadening of the vote. A well implemented electronic system should allow for more votes to be done in general. There are other suggestions on this board around allowing constituents to vote for what they want their representatives to vote in support of or not. This is a great idea, but it is not feasible to do unless there is an electronic system in my opinion. The cost for everyone's time is too high.

As far as verifying people's identity, what is wrong with a federal user name / password? There could even be a few challenge questions. There could be cameras installed at some / all of the stations and a random sampling with manual verifications of photo id to image at the kiosk (not that I would necessarily lobby for this, but it is a possibility). At that point, it is purely on the individual to keep their authentication information to themselves. I put forth that anyone who cares about their stake in their country and democracy would be likely to treat this information seriously. So, then we get into the scenario of who might try to steal such information. However, with a contained system such as the kiosk, with extremely limited input methods such as touch screen input keypads, it is unlikely that electronic methods of identity theft could be used, unlike with home computers.
David Langer 9 months ago
Cross posting my comment from an idea to create an Online Citizen Participation Portal:

As a software developer, one of the most important points to me about this is that the software developed for anything to do with voting is open source (that is the source code can be read and reviewed by anyone. This is so that 'we the people' can review the code that is doing the work powering our democracy) and is owned by the government (and by extension, the people), not by some private sector company. Also, the release control process must be open and reviewable as well. It's all well and good to be able to see source code, but there is a lot that happens from source code to functioning computer system. It must be verifiable if it is to be able to provide us with any level of faith in 'the system'.

It will be a matter of utmost importance to verify the identity of people logging in to system to record their votes. Tampering with this system would need to be made a federal crime with stiff penalties. There are lots of ways to provide secure web access. In my opinion the absolute best would be to create a secure, enclosed, electronic kiosk network available at post offices, libraries, government buildings and the like where anyone can go to record their votes in an extremely secure manner so that it is not subject to the vagaries of viruses, worms, keystroke-loggers and such that plague the common home computer. This also provides folks who do not have home computers access to the same electronic voting system as those more fortunate.

It would be fine to make the site accessible from home computers to review materials, record voting intentions and such. However, for absolute security, the final voting should be only possible via the kiosk network.
David Langer 9 months ago
I had wanted to do something like this in an internet tax allocation system, but doing it at tax time makes PERFECT sense. Also, it ensures that everyone who pays taxes has a chance to weight in regardless of their technology. It is also very easy to associate the allocations with the tax amounts since they are on the same form.

One of my main concerns is how to set up the allocation groups. For example:
Major groups:
Education
Health Care
Defense
Transportation

Minor Groups:

Under Education:
K-12
College
Public Libraries

Under Health Care:
Preventive Care
Emergency Care
Research (Cancer, Stem Cells)

Under Defense:
Military Personnel Support (VA, Active Duty)
"War on Terror"
Military Occupations
Foreign Country Bases

Under Transportation:
Rail Infrastructure
Road Infrastructure
"Green" Energy Supply Infrastructure

The details would be hashed out by further votes with the funds collected, with a report on what we used where available in the next year's taxes (also available on the web of course, to save paper for those people who have access)

Nice one!
David Langer 9 months ago
I agree with mechwvi above. Anything that has to do with the people giving their representatives feedback and/or direction about what they want their government to do must be equally available to those without access to their own computers.

If you want to say that this idea is just a next step, that is fine, and I understand where you are coming from. My support is for the full deal that includes our poorer off brothers and sisters, because the more citizens who vote and take a part in our democracy, the better off we all will be.
David Langer 9 months ago
This sounds similar to http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2557-4049 about an Online Citizen Participation Portal. I posted a comment there about creating a national electronic kiosk system. This would make it available to everyone, not just those with a computer.

Also, statistical analysis could be coded in, provided that we the people do not mind this system having access to basic data about us. As long as we have an open process for building and utilizing this system, that should not be an issue.
David Langer 9 months ago
There is an idea: http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2557-4049 for an Online Citizen Participation Portal. I posted a comment there about creating a national electronic kiosk system for recording votes.

Internet voting is a good idea in my opinion, but security is a major problem on the internet. Until the security issues are WELL resolved, voting cannot be moved to the internet.

That said, we can resolve those issues. Also, I mentioned national kiosk system. For citizens living in other countries, we should be able to work out putting kiosks in our consulates in foreign nations, at the very least.
David Langer 9 months ago
As a software developer, one of the most important points to me about this is that the software developed for anything to do with voting is open source (that is the source code can be read and reviewed by anyone. This is so that 'we the people' can review the code that is doing the work powering our democracy) and is owned by the government (and by extension, the people), not by some private sector company. Also, the release control process must be open and reviewable as well. It's all well and good to be able to see source code, but there is a lot that happens from source code to functioning computer system. It must be verifiable if it is to be able to provide us with any level of faith in 'the system'.

It will be a matter of utmost importance to verify the identity of people logging in to system to record their votes. Tampering with this system would need to be made a federal crime with stiff penalties. There are lots of ways to provide secure web access. In my opinion the absolute best would be to create a secure, enclosed, electronic kiosk network available at post offices, libraries, government buildings and the like where anyone can go to record their votes in an extremely secure manner so that it is not subject to the vagaries of viruses, worms, keystroke-loggers and such that plague the common home computer. This also provides folks who do not have home computers access to the same electronic voting system as those more fortunate.

It would be fine to make the site accessible from home computers to review materials, record voting intentions and such. However, for absolute security, the final voting should be only possible via the kiosk network.