[Cryptography] Used election machinery?

[Ray Dillinger]

Maricopa County, AZ, and Fulton County, PA - and possibly other
locations as the year goes on - have had their voting machines, vote
tally systems, routers, and other specialized bits decertified as a
result of their chain of custody having been compromised.  These
machines were turned over to private "auditors" who did not meet
requirements for security, liability, and several other things, and as a
result they can no longer be used in any future elections.

Those counties (or states) bear the expense of replacing that machinery
before the next election cycle, and the old machinery, while still
functioning perfectly as far as anyone knows, and not even particularly
obsolete, is now effectively useless to them.   No other county or state
will buy and use equipment that has already been decertified.  So that
equipment is likely to be sold on the secondary market to private
citizens, or outright scrapped.

I am of the opinion that this machinery should be acquired by security
researchers who can do a real audit, not of any election in particular,
but of the machinery itself.  To investigate its function and security,
entirely without involving any real ballots that have been cast or real
elections that have been decided and/or challenged. 

Generally the real questions address tiny parts of the process: does it
correctly record votes? Is it possible to change votes?  Is it possible
for a program to be left on it that will run and change votes later? 
Are the communications used secure?  Does it create a faithful paper
ballot?  Is there any way to prevent it from creating a faithful paper
ballot?  Is there any way to make it produce more than one paper copy of
a ballot?    Would a paper copy of a ballot cast on the wrong machine or
in the wrong year be counted in an audit?  Etc, etc, etc....  If,
indeed, an entire election is needed to test some functions, then
perhaps sneeches belonging to the star-bellied and non-starred parties
can have an election to vote for butter-side-up or butter-side-down. 
With perhaps minority candidates "both", "neither", and "marmalade."

            Bear