Scientists question electronic voting

[Notable Software]

Ed,

The whole idea of photographing paper ballots
is a straw man.  It is akin to saying that people
will just run through red lights anyway so we
shouldn't place them at intersections.  

I agree that we need to improve voting systems,
but the current trend toward self-auditing devices
is going backward rather than forward in this regard.
In 2002 it was electronic ballots (on cartridges) that
were misplaced (to the tune of over 100,000 votes)
in Florida.  Apparently you neglected to read the
newspapers last fall.  I didn't see any improvement
in what was purchased over what they had before,
unless you want to call tens of millions of extra dollars
in expenditures an improvement.

The salient requirement of Democratic elections is
that the voters must be assured that their ballots are
recorded and tabulated as cast.  If the process is
such that it can only be understood by a team of
scientists with Ph.D.'s, the average citizen can have
no confidence that their voice is being heard.  I 
have never said that the paper balloting solution is
a perfect one, but it provides assurances in a human-
accessible format that is a considerable improvement
over both the black-box systems and the chad-based
ones.  If you can devise a system that is equally user-
friendly and has the same ability for independent auditing, 
then please do so.  

Rebecca Mercuri.


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