Minimal Standards For Safe E-voting or Back To Paper Only, Human Count Only!

IMO MINIMALLY *IF* WE DECIDE TO GO WITH ELECTRONIC VOTING...

1) it ABSOLUTELY MUST BE DISCLOSED SOURCE CODE ie. if its from a private company they must disclose ALL source code of ALL programs on the machine to the state/county (OPEN SOURCE IS EVEN BETTER, BUT AT LEAST DISCLOSED SOURCE and

2) it ABSOLUTELY MUST BE THOROUGHLY TESTED BY THE STATE AND CERTIFIED BUG AND HACK-FREE! And I don't mean the lame excuse for testing and certification that's gone on previously.

3) IN ORDER TO BE CERTIFIED WE MUST HAVE OPEN STANDARDS REQUIRED BY THE STATE. Open Standard means that there is a publically available and published specification that has been published and THE SOFTWARE MUST BE CONFORMANCE TESTED TO ENSURE ITS COMPLIANCE WITH THE STANDARD.

4) WE MUST HAVE A REAL BALLOT, NOT JUST A PRINT OUT OF THE SUPPOSED VOTE. DRE'S DO NOT AS THEY STAND REMOVE THE BALLOT ENTIRELY AND THE ONLY "RECORD" IS WHATEVER IS ON THE ELECTRONIC RECORDING DEVICE. THIS DOESN'T CUT IT. OVC is on the ball with this one and in the OVC proposal the computer that the person "votes" on is really just a glorified ballot marking machine with extra auditing and cross-check tallying thrown in.

5) WE MUST HAVE CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY EVIDENCE OF EACH AND EVERY INDIVIDUAL WHO HANDLES THE VOTING MACHINES, THE BALLOTS, THE TALLIES AND THE TABULATION MACHINES!!! Hardware dongles to unlock the machines might be the way to go here. BTW Steven I think you meant "Chain-of-custody" not "Chain-of-command". :-)

6) WE MUST HAVE EFFECTIVE SECURITY AT EACH STEP OF THE PROCESS.

7) WE MUST HAVE HUMAN BEINGS/NONPARTISAN CITIZENS INTIMATELY INVOLVED IN THE COUNTING, IF NOT TOTALLY DOING THE COUNTING.

8) WE MUST HAVE NON- OR MULTI- PARTISAN CITIZENS IN CHARGE OF THE WHOLE PROCESS AND THIS CAN NEVER AGAIN BE TRUSTED TO A PRIVATE CORPORATION WITH NO OVERSIGHT! HOW MANY TIMES DOES THE CHEATING HAVE TO STING US BEFORE WE SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" AND THESE PRIVATE, PROPRIETARY ELECTION SYSTEMS THAT TAKE AWAY DEMOCRACY FROM THE PEOPLE HAVE TO GO!

IF WE CAN NOT GET THESE THINGS WE SHOULD GO BACK TO PAPER-ONLY COUNTED ONLY BY HUMAN BEINGS. SURE CHEATING WILL OCCUR, BUT IT TAKES A LOT MORE WORK BY A LOT MORE HUMANS AND DISCOVERING THE CHEATING IS MUCH EASIER WITH PAPER ONLY COUNTED ONLY BY HUMAN BEINGS.

JamBoi
http://SAFFElex.blogspot.com