Diebold Shows How to Make Your Own Voting Machine Key

[Umfriend]

Sorry Az and Doc, but I think you're trying to get out to easily. I am positively certain, az, that people differ in ethics but if you call me on one of your personal ethics then I don;t think you can do wtihout at least disclosing what personal ethical rule of yours I am supposed to have breached. I think it is unethical to treat me like that.

And Doc, what does SA have to do with this? I was a protagonist of the boycott in that case but at least I knew why and was ready to explain my position. You made the call, I suggest you explain why.

[az]

Sorry Az and Doc, but I think you're trying to get out to easily. I am positively certain, az, that people differ in ethics but if you call me on one of your personal ethics then I don;t think you can do wtihout at least disclosing what personal ethical rule of yours I am supposed to have breached. I think it is unethical to treat me like that.

And I think I could disagree with that without having to feel offended by you. I really didn't want to offend you, I was just stating my personal feelings.

You made the call, I suggest you explain why.

NEDAP builds machines that are IMHO useless. There's nothing too wrong with that, Porsche does, too. But NEDAPs machines can be (and I suspect are) used to undermine democracy. I think we can agree that framing votes is highly unethical. I don't accuse NEDAP of doing that. I accuse them of building machines that make this much easier than it has been in the past. Machines that aren't much good for anything else, at least nobody has yet made an argument as to what real benefit those machines have. I am opposed to using voting machines, thus I am naturally opposed to people manufacturing them, thus I am opposed to investing into a business that does. As I said, I don't think this is a huge crime, but still one could surely invest in "better" firms. One could also, of course, in worse firms, like landmine manufacturers (and I think you would follow my exact same reasoning if I said investing in a landmine manufacturer was unethical - because landmines cannot be used to do anything good. With more dramatic and more immediately obvious results than voting machines, of course.).

[Umfriend]

Is your opposition to using voting machines an ethical issue or one that follows from the suspicion that it is easier to commit election-fraud with the use of these machines than without them?

[az]

I suspect that it is easier to commit election fraud with the use of voting machines, and helping people commit election fraud is unethical to me.

I don't understand what you don't understand, and I also don't understand why you seem so upset about me thinking this way, please explain.

[Umfriend]

I am not upset. It is just that I don't appreciate being judged without any backing arguments. This is the first time you gave one:
Suspicion fraud becomes easier = helping frauds = fraud is unethical hence the machine is hence the production of it is hence the company producing it is hence owning the company that produces it is unethical.
I find your line of reasoning inappropriate. Many many devices we produce nowadays have drawbacks amongst which being vulnerable to unethical behaviour. It's almost like saying a the manufacturing of cars is unethical because it is easier to kill people with it than by hand and that the manufacturer is in fact 'helping' the murderer. I guess owing stock in a brewing company is unethical as well.

In reality I think it is a weighing of considerations. Using voting computers (which I am not per se a protagonist of) requires less labor in the voting process. Allegedly, they make fewer mistakes than humans. Even the activist group agrees that the machine does what it is supposed to do, within spec and all. Maybe the decision to use them was wrong, perhaps the specs were not thought out well, but it was not NEDAPs', was it? Oh, and NEDAP produces a lot of things, this is just one of their many product-lines.

In short, I do not see by what reasonable position owing NEDAP stock is unethical.

[az]

You do not have to, I said that from the beginning You are, by the way, automatically judged all the time by all the people you meet, and vice versa, there's nothing you can do about it.

Also I said I don't think voting machines do really have any real benefits over counting by hand - being faster is nice, but not necessary or really very useful (not the contrary either, but a few hours don't make any difference), being more accurate - not per se, and if so, by how much? I don't think the margin of error is very large with hand counted votes, but I admit I don't really know.

Well, to me, voting machines don't bring any benefits. If cars didn't, I would be against cars. Hence my argument with the landmine maker - they are not useful. The only use I see is doing harm. This is unethical. And it doesn't matter whether they also manufacture toys for crippled children.

[Umfriend]

I meant I do not appreciate people speaking out their judgement of me in public but you knew that. If I am not mistaken, about 0.8% of the votes here were invalidly cast pre-voting-computer age. That alone made computers more reliable. That exludes the error in counting validly casted votes of which I know no estimate. It seems clear to me that as these machines were bought, there have been poeple who did see benefits in using them. And they probably actually thought about it. Not well perhaps, but they probably tried.

[az]

I question not only their competence, but also their motives. Like that of the people who think they need to spy on their own populace. For their "freedom".

[Umfriend]

I question not only their competence, but also their motives. Like that of the people who think they need to spy on their own populace. For their "freedom".

We're still talking about NEDAP, right? That is a severe accusation that is not even made, in any way, by those activists. Any reasonable grounds for this?

[az]

I was talking about politicians with that sentence, addressing your quote "It seems clear to me that as these machines were bought, there have been poeple who did see benefits in using them.". Sorry if that was unclear.

I don't know where politics in the Netherlands have moved the past few years, but here, we're getting ever closer to an orwellian state.

[Umfriend]

Yes, and again, that accusation is not made by even the activists.
Az, normally when you make a moral judgment I am inclined to consider it. I've read some of your post on these fora. Ussually you can and do explain your position rather well IMO. I think in this case you may have been to fast.

[az]

I think I failed to communicate the degree of "wrongness" associated (to me) with owning NEDAP stock. There are a lot of things a lot worse than this, and everyone of us does things equally bad almost every day without even thinking about it; I thought about whether this was "bad" eough to even post my opinion about it, because it is only so mildly "bad". Sorry if that didn't come across. Let's just agree to disagree on if we think owning NEDAP stock is 100% fine with our own morals. I certainly don't think worse of you because you do.

My opinion about power hungry and/or incompetent politicians in Germany still stands, though. Their behaviour in some areas can only be explained by one or both of these accusations, and I am not sure which one they'd be more pleased with.

EDIT: I just got up (yeah I know what time it is..), so if this doesn't make much sense, just go "huh?" and I'll try once more when I'm fully awake.