Actually yes, probably. Most people don't understand the importance of transparency for a real and working democracy. "Transparency" as in "open source code", for example.
I agree that they don't understand, and further more, they don't even understand what 'code' is. How computers work, or what the technical innards of the computers have to do with democracy. Frankly, I don't understand the later either :(
> what the technical innards of the computers have to do with democracy. Frankly, I don't understand the later either :(
We're about to connect every tiny little aspect of our lives to technology. Everything becomes data that can be stored, measured, interpreted, used for good and nefarious purposes. Code is what manages all these processes. If we let black-box code (closed-source code) control our data, it means we trust those companies and governments who produce this code 100% and beyond the slightest doubt. Given Snowden's revelations about the NSA's abuse of power, it's become pretty obvious that we couldn't make a bigger mistake than trusting nontransparent governments or systems or operating systems or code. Even hardware needs to become open-source sooner or later.
Simple question: Can we ever trust voting machines that are not 100% open-source? Of course not.
