In every area of life, but especially in the overlapping realms of technology, science, and health, misunderstanding how things work can be widespread, and that misunderstanding can lead to problems.

In the area of voting, the main problem seems to be the expenditure of great amounts of outrage and concern over things that are not real. At the same time this happens, things that are real matter a great deal.

I’ll give you one example. Remember the special election for the Congressional Representative for Georgia’s 6th district, earlier this year? Several media outlets reported “voting machines stolen,” which, in turn, caused great outrage and concern on The Internet because, well, voting machines had been stolen.

Now, pause for a moment and think what this means. What does it mean to have voting machines stolen? What is a voting machine? What would you do about voting machines being stolen? How might you try to solve the problem of voting machines being stolen just before an election was happening (like,the day before)? How might this affect the election? Who likely did it? How would you find them and what would you do to them?

I hope you did not spend a lot of time on those questions because if you did, you probably wasted it (unless you already know about the Cobb County Georgia story). Continue reading Hacking The American Election System: Getting It Right →