Scientists question electronic voting

[Ed Gerck]

David Howe wrote:

> "Francois Grieu" <fgrieu at micronet.fr> wrote:
> > Then there is the problem that the printed receipt must not be usable
> > to determine who voted for who, even knowing in which order the
> > voters went to the machine. Therefore the printed receipts must be
> > shuffled. Which brings us straight back to papers in a box, that we
> > shake before opening.
> This may be the case in france - but in england, every vote slip has a
> unique number which is recorded against the voter id number on the
> original voter card. any given vote *can* be traced back to the voter
> that used it.

This is true in the UK, but legal authorization is required to do so. In
the US, OTOH, the paper voting systems today are done in such a way
that the privacy of the vote is immune even to a court order to disclose it.
Voters are not anonymous, as they must be identified and listed in the
voter list at each poll place, but it is impossible (or, should be) to link
a voter to a vote.  This imposes, for example, limits on the time-stamp
accuracy and other factors suhc as storage ordering that could help in
linking a voter to a vote.

Cheers,
Ed Gerck


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