That XKCD on voting machine software is wrong
The latest XKCD comic on voting machine software is wrong, profoundly so. It's the sort of thing that appeals to our prejudices, but mistakes the details.
Accidents vs. attack
The biggest flaw is that the comic confuses accidents vs. intentional attack. Airplanes and elevators are designed to avoid accidental failures. If that's the measure, then voting machine software is fine and perfectly trustworthy. Such machines are no more likely to accidentally record a wrong vote than the paper voting systems they replaced -- indeed less likely. The reason we have electronic voting machines in the first place was due to the "hanging chad" problem in the Bush v. Gore election of the year 2000. After that election, a wave of new, software-based, voting machines replaced the older inaccurate paper machines.
The question is whether software voting machines can be attacked. Well, if that's the measure, then airplanes aren't safe at all. Security against human attack consists of the entire infrastructure outside the plane, such as TSA forcing us to take off our shoes, to trade restrictions to prevent the proliferation of Stinger missiles.
Confusing the two, accidents vs. attack, is used here because it makes the reader feel superior. We Continue reading
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