[Eug-lug] Electronic Voting-UO CIS Colloquium-Thursday, 10/21 (fwd)

[horst]

Another interesting seminar at the UO CIS Dept.
No question, a hot topic and a distinguished speaker.

  - Horst

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:56:50 -0700
From: Cheri Smith <cheri at cs.uoregon.edu>
To: colloquia at cs.uoregon.edu, faculty at cs.uoregon.edu, grads-mail at cs.uoregon.edu,
     research at cs.uoregon.edu
...
Subject: Electronic Voting-UO CIS Colloquium-Thursday, 10/21

Electronic Voting

Erik Nilsson
Insilicos


ABSTRACT

Over the last four years, voting technology has received unprecedented 
attention by the media, academia, legislatures, and ordinary voters. It is now 
widely recognized that the limitations of our voting technologies present a 
danger to democracy, and improvements must be made. However, opinions diverge 
on the real nature of the problem, and the best course of action. As another 
startlingly close presidential election approaches, the danger to democracy is 
immediate. Not only do the two candidates represent divergent courses for the 
country, but the possibility a second election that generates only weak 
legitimacy for the winner has dire potential.

A reasonably comprehensive understanding of the problem requires an
understanding of how elections are administered, the kinds of technologies
elections require, and how technology is applied to elections. Technology 
adoption for elections has mostly been the repurposing of existing artifacts, 
practices and ideas. Most of the problems we find today can be traced to 
inappropriate repurposing.

In response to these problems voting technology has now become the focus of 
research. Some insights point to improvements, but research techniques can also 
be inappropriately repurposed to elections questions, leading to less useful 
results.

Voting seems initially simple, but quickly raises many complex questions. 
Sorting out the complexities of elections is of critical importance to the 
well-being of America and the world.


BIO:

Erik chairs the Working Group on Voting Technology (vote-wg) of Computer 
Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) <http://www.cpsr.net/>. Erik's 
almost two decade involvement with vote-wg and CPSR includes writings on 
elections technology, user-interface design, and security. He was among the 
first to call for voter-verifiable paper ballots on "touch screen" voting 
machines, taking this position in several papers with Bob Wilcox in the late 
1980's. IN 1994, in connection with CPSR, he worked for the election commission 
in South Africa, during the historic elections that brought Nelson Mandela and 
the ANC to power. His experiences in South Africa were the subject of an 
article in Wired Magazine. Erik is currently the director of CPSR's involvement 
with TechWatch a project of Verified Voting 
<http://www.verifiedvoting.org/techwatch> This project 
<http://www.cpsr.net/issues/vote/evoteproject> will produce a web based 
national system for reporting election incidents that compromise voter's 
rights.

Erik is president of Insilicos <http://www.insilicos.com>, a biotech startup 
concentrating on proteomics and metabolomics software. His professional 
background of 20 years includes programming, project management, engineering 
management, and executive management. Erik received a BS degree in Computer & 
Information Science from the UO in 1986.


DATE:    Thursday, October 21, 2004
TIME:     3:30 p.m. talk, refreshments following talk
PLACE:   220 Deschutes Hall (Colloquium Room), University of Oregon