Talk:Open Voting Consortium

Reliable Sources towards establishing WP:Notability
I got these from googling but there are more that need $ to access.


 * 1) Open-Source E-Voting Heads West - Wired - January 21, 2004
 * 2) E-voting is inevitable, despite flaws - Seatle Times - March 22, 2004
 * 3) Bay Area Programmers Develop Touchscreen Alternative - Berkeley Daily Planet - March 30, 2004
 * 4) Volunteer Group Demos Free Election Software - Information Week - April 1, 2004
 * 5) Electronic voting debate: Can computers ever be trustworthy? - USA Today - April 25, 2004
 * 6) A Really Open Election - The New York Times - May 30, 2004
 * 7) E-voting vent: You can't tell if it worked - Seatle Times - September 20, 2004
 * 8) Voting decision creates turmoil - Sacramento Bee - August 5, 2007

I am sure many of these could also be used to build the article per WP:RS.

I am an active supporter of the OVC so editting here is clearly COI but I have listed several reliable sources in Section 1 below to establish notability. A little help integrating these sources into the article is appreciated. Low Sea (talk) 02:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Removed the template as the article has been vastly improved and now contains sufficient external citations Kiore (talk) 22:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Attn ICU Team
Everything except notability is needed (see talkpage); I have COI so cannot do it myself.

I added the links above and there is no doubt of Notability but this poor article needs lots of help. I am a supporter of OVC so it would be COI for me to edit directly. -- Low Sea (talk) 23:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Worth knowing about electronic voting
Back in the 1990's we who worked with or researched computer security and cryptography used to joke about electronic voting. Since most of us knew and understood the proofs for that electronic voting can never be made secure. (Well, unless a very major change in human understanding, intelligence and perception abilities happens.) We stopped joking about it and instead felt sad when the politicians here in the EU and over in the US started pushing for electronic voting systems.

None of the existing and no perceivable electronic voting system can come even close to the security that the better paper based systems provide today. (But sure, there are some really bad paper based systems too.) Actually, most electronic voting systems are so bad that it's appalling, they don't even fulfil basic computer security requirements. I guess one reason is that any sane computer security expert doesn't want to work with it.

But even if the best minds in the world would work with it, it is well known that it is an unsolvable problem. And hey, it isn't even really a problem, since we do have good paper based systems, so we don't need electronic voting.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Corporate PR style snowjob
This article is largely a puff piece. Does anyone have any sourced info on the group? Syntacticus (talk) 04:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Dude, it's a stub. Why not either A. Add sources and expand. B. Nominate for deletion (if it hasn't been through that process lately). or C. ignore it? You're a funny guy, though, if you think THIS article is a "corporate pr-style snowjob."Bali ultimate (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think the article should be made a grease spot. Maybe it can be improved. Syntacticus (talk) 07:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It has been; expanded, sources inserted into text, ICU and sourcing tags removed as a consequence. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

To the bethesda maryland ip
Dear User:71.178.193.134 - I have re-read the source and believe the text I've written using that citation is indeed well-supported. Here are some relevant graphs from that article. I'm going to revert; please explain your objections here before reverting again. "OVC’s system, currently in software form only, can be used on regular desktop PCs hooked up to a touchscreen monitor and a standard printer. Like the touchscreen machines now in use, the OVC unit records the vote electronically. But unlike Diebold’s machines, the OVC system also automatically produce a paper receipt, which is intended to be the official tally. To ensure accuracy, the paper count is then reconciled against the electronic one stored on the machines.

“Our idea is that the machines should have [a tally] that people can inspect,” said Arthur Keller, a computer scientist who teaches part-time at UC Santa Cruz. “You trust the paper and can have much more faith in the process.”

The Open Voting Consortium (OVC), a nonprofit group with several Bay Area members, recently announced the development of touchscreen voting machine software that uses open source and creates a voter verified paper trail. Recently completed, the software is set to be publicly tested this Thursday, April 1, at the Santa Clara County government offices in San Jose.

The group’s development comes at a particularly charged time for the touchscreen debate. Just last week, Alameda County Registrar of Voters Brad Clark filed an official complaint with Diebold, the manufacturer of the touchscreen voting machines used throughout the county. Clark was one of the first county registrars in the state to invest in the new technology, spending $12.7 million on the Diebold machines in May of 2002. But he made his formal complaint after several problems with the Diebold machines during last October’s gubernatorial recall, as well as the primary earlier this month, resulted in switched votes and major delays. "Bali ultimate (talk) 15:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Bali, Bethesda? Not so much.


 * I clarified the intro
 * Alan Dechert isn't an elections expert and no one on that founders list is a policy expert. The OVC website is not a reliable source for such descriptions.
 * "The consortium has gained support from representatives in the California legislature" is unsourced.
 * http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/blog/2006-oct-14/vendor_applies_for_open_voting_consortium_certification not referencing anything
 * "trying to fix perceived security flaws in touch-screen voting machines supplied by Diebold Inc. by" please explain where you think this is supported by the source specifically.
 * 71.178.193.134 (talk) 17:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Per "The group’s development comes at a particularly charged time for the touchscreen debate. Just last week, Alameda County Registrar of Voters Brad Clark filed an official complaint with Diebold, the manufacturer of the touchscreen voting machines used throughout the county." AND "Two state senators, including Oakland’s Don Perata, recently introduced legislation asking the state to decertify touchscreen machines. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has also issued two mandates asking for increased security updates on all touchscreen machines for upcoming elections." AND "Taking all the complaints and security vulnerabilities into question, the Open Voting Consortium developed a simple approach; maintain the advantages of a touchscreen system but include the security features that alleviate the current security concerns." AND "OVC’s system, currently in software form only, can be used on regular desktop PCs hooked up to a touchscreen monitor and a standard printer. Like the touchscreen machines now in use, the OVC unit records the vote electronically. But unlike Diebold’s machines, the OVC system also automatically produce a paper receipt, which is intended to be the official tally. To ensure accuracy, the paper count is then reconciled against the electronic one stored on the machines. “Our idea is that the machines should have [a tally] that people can inspect,” said Arthur Keller, a computer scientist who teaches part-time at UC Santa Cruz. “You trust the paper and can have much more faith in the process.” " As such i've reverted. (as to your IP -- it has you at the 20810 area code in Montgomery County -- hence "bethesda").Bali ultimate (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * One more thing. Your edits aren't showing up in the "Edit history." THis could be a software lag on wikipedia, and may sort itself out soon. If this is because you're flagging your edits as "minor edits" (no accusaion here, that's just one possible reason for their absence) you really shouldn't do that unless it's truly minor like formatting a link. Bali ultimate (talk) 18:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Bali, I think you're using disparate quotes to make your argument, but regardless I cleaned up the section to at least correct the English and make it arguably accurate. Also, Anon users do not have the ability to mark edits as minor. I don't know what service you're using to resolve my IP, but you're not even in the right state. Not sure how it was relevant to begin with though.71.178.193.134 (talk) 18:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If i understand your edit, apparently Diebold has changed its name/been bought since the article was written? At any rate, that article mentions nothing but "Diebold." Will look into this.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

You're ignorance aside, "Diebold" is and was the name of the parent company. It is and was an innacurate wikilink. The correct link would have been Diebold Election Systems which currently redirects to Premier Election Solutions as the comapny has since rebranded. Do not revert to introduce innacuracies. 71.178.193.134 (talk) 20:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, and you don't edit war. The premier name didn't exist at the time, and i don't care about their "re-branding" that article from 2004 says machines supplied by Diebold. Diedold election systems was the name of the subsidiary at the time, the subsidiary has since changed. Who cares? It still has the same owner, Diebold and this has the advantage of both reflecting the citation source and being the most commonly used name. In this case, you've added in the inaccuracy.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you don't care about accuracy, but WP does. These names have meaning. They are separate corporations. No one is trying to hide the Diebold name. It's right there in the parenthesis, in fact now I put it as the primary and the new name in the parenthesis. There is no edit was here, though I fear there can be no consensus with someone whose goal is inaccurate content.71.178.193.134 (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Intensive Care
Will probably remove the ICU tag soon unless there are major objections. There are now three reliable secondary sources - AP, SF Chronicle, Berkley Daily Planet -- woven into text.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Is OVC a non-profit?
They claim to be a non-profit on their website, and paypal calls their payments "donations", but I'm having trouble locating their info in guidestar or on irs.gov at http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=96136,00.html. Anyone else have better luck? This is most likely when their nonprofit name is different from their public names I find. 76.14.66.55 (talk) 21:55, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything on OVC's nonprofit status at the federal level, but did update the article based the California Secretary of States website information. 76.14.66.55 (talk) 05:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

They appear to be a mutual benefit type nonprofit, so would not receive federal 501c3 status I believe, but that clears that part of things up! 76.14.66.55 (talk) 05:15, 25 April 2010 (UTC)