A lot of what I do is deal with broken projects; systems that don’t work, software development that’s way behind or on schedule but shedding necessary features.<\/p>\n
When things don’t work, there’s seldom a ‘smoking gun’; you have to dig a bit to try and find out what’s going on, toss up hypotheses and check them out, and one of the things I say a lot is “How would we know if that’s true?” The coders are claiming the database is performing badly; the DBA’s are claiming the application servers are misconfigured. OK, how would we know if any of those are true? Because once you can ask that question and get an answer, you’re on the path to defining tests which will let you make some firm statements.<\/p>\n
So here’s an article about the election yesterday<\/a> and e-voting:<\/p>\n WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Voters across the United States encountered scattered problems with new touch-screen systems on Tuesday as they voted in primary elections, but by and large the machines ran smoothly, state election officials said on Wednesday. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Voters in some polling stations in San Diego and Oakland, California, were turned away after officials had trouble starting up the machines, while others in Maryland and Georgia had to use paper ballots, officials said. <\/p>\n Aside from setup problems, the machines functioned smoothly, officials said. <\/p>\n “We had no technical issues at all, just the normal human stuff,” said Linda Lamone, Maryland state administrator of elections. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n OK. How would we know if that’s true?<\/b> We don’t, and more importantly, we can’t<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n Folks, I’m coming to the conclusion that this is the most urgent issue on the table today. More important than fighting Islamist terrorism, more important than domestic security, more important than economic policy, and let me tell you why I feel that way.<\/p>\n It’s about legitimacy<\/a>. Legitimacy matters, both domestically, and internationally. Here’s an example<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Cherie Blair still believed that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore,” author Philip Stephens wrote in his book “Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader. ” <\/p>\n Although Tony Blair was pragmatic about Bush’s victory, Mrs Blair was far less sanguine about the Supreme Court decision that gave him the keys to the White House. <\/p>\n She believed Al Gore had been “robbed” of the presidency and was hostile to the idea of her husband “cosying” up to the new President. <\/p>\n Even as they flew to Washington for their first meeting with the presidential couple, Mrs Blair was in no mood to curry favour, the book stated.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n You want to imagine the impact when some disgruntled tech spins a story about deliberate, untraceable, errors coded into the machines that gather election results? When there has been a close, hotly contested election, and the presidency is at stake?<\/p>\n