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India has been using Electronic Voting since 1982 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_examples#India). No major problems reported. Ironically the first vote held with this was struck down, because the law had no provision for electronic voting (Laws which were subsequently changed). Read more about Indian EVM's http://www.eci.gov.in/faq/evm.asp

Why can't they use something like this: http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/

More information here: http://www.eci.gov.in/Audio_VideoClips/presentation.asp

and

http://www.eci.gov.in/faq/evm.asp

Why can't they use something like this: http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/

More information here: http://www.eci.gov.in/Audio_VideoClips/presentation.asp

and

http://www.eci.gov.in/faq/evm.asp

Watch and learn :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/

http://www.eci.gov.in/faq/evm.asp

No vindaloo or call center jokes please!

All thats needed to be solved here is to count votes fast and accurately without errors.

The creators seems to be more worried about what technology to use (wi-fi, encryption, yada, yada) than how to solve the problem.

Look at how India has already successfully used electronic voting machines across many elections - http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/slide.asp

Before you bang on the table demanding cool animation while voting and the face of the person youre voting for - thats not the core purpose of the machine.
Adding more stuff in there makes it complex and breakable, especially people really want to break it.

They used to have, you mean. It's all electronic voiting now. The advantage of the current system is that the voting machines are simple and cheap. The simplicity makes it harder to cheat (not impossible). You can read more at http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machine s/

Maryland should just outsource it to India! http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm

Cool link, I knew approximately how India’s electronic voting machines worked but had never seen a picture.

Obviously it would be much cheaper to use such a beautifully simple electronic device as that instead of a full-blown general purpose computer, but how would it yield net savings against the paper-and-sharpie method, aside from requiring less volunteer labor to tally the paper ballots at the end of the night?

Not always.
In India, the introduction of EVMs reduced the election expences by a magnitude of 10.
Also, since there is a huge potential number of votes (upto 500 Million), it can reduce the time taken for the counting by a huge amount.
Another point to be taken to consideration is that there was a lot of invalid votes (when people unknowingly pressed the marker between two candidates in the ballot) esp in places where illetracy is abound. In some places, the invalid votes was more than the difference of votes beween the winning and second candidates. The EVMs meant that invalid votes are no longer an issue.
Also, there was an issue wherein a group of people will barge in a polling booth, and stuff some hundreds or thousands of ballots to the ballot box and run out. This invariably caused either
(a) wrong counts or
(b) re-voting in that booth.
Now this is no longer an issue since there is a time limit between votes and if too many votes come in, it goes in to lock mode(i dont know whether the second option is used now, but the first one is still there - time limit is around 20 seconds or so).

So I guess, it is needed, in many enviornments.

There is such a voting machine being used in the World's most populus Democracy for past 12 years.

http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm

http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm

OR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machine s

All that you have suggested is already in the machine.

Seems the country that has long been derided as Third-World, dirt Poor, unwashed masses can implement a technologically superior yet simple solution to maintaining Democracy amongst its unwashed masses with highest ethics.

Unless US loses its NIH syndrome, it is bound to be abused by companies like Deibold.

India implemented a semi automated electronic voting system during the last country wide general elections. There has been surprisingly little debate on the security of this system. The design is closed source even though it was developed by a govt owned unit. There has been no independant audit of the system's security, even though the systems are used in virtually every election nowadays. All this in a country where booth capturing and rigging are commonplace. The scope for electoral fraud is immense! It's probably only a matter of time before someone begins to exploit flaws in the system... Here's some info on the EVM: http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm [Election Commission of India] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machine s [Wikipedia]

India has been using Electronic Voting Machines for over 15 years with no damage to election process. It is a small portable battery operated machine. http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/

Here is a description of the one used in India: http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm

Here is a comparision between the Deibold and the Indian EVM system:http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian- evm-compared-with-diebold.html

Here is a wikipedia article on it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_mach ines

Implementing a system like this can make it so much easier to count votes and do it quickly too.

I hope they do, because every time I want to read something on an Indian Government website, I'm horrified in new ways. I thought I'd grown immune to the IE-only sites that the Indian Government seems to have a fetish for, but databases of election results in Access is an assault on good taste.

This article compares India voting machines vis-a-vis Dieblold.There was also a previous slashdot story on this. These machines are much simpler and hence lesser prone to bugs.As discussed by the article , faith in this machines have been established simply because they have been used over the past few years by over 670 million registered voters in elections at national as well as state levels.
This simple article explains the EVM's used

Well...first of all Elections in India as well are not just at National level. There are elections for state government as well as for city , town and village councils(known as panchayats). This has a very simple explanation of the EVM used in Indian Elections.
Anonymity- It provides total anonymity because no one in any possible way can view during ar after the votes are casted that who was which vote casted by. So anonymity that is called for is met.
Scalability-Well the very fact that it is used for national elections in india the most populous democracy is , I think proof enough for scalability
Speed- This I feel is implicit , because any electronic voting system at any rate would produce results at a rate faster than the manual system. I guess that the problem is that they are trying to look at very compex software based implementations. This article posted on MSN sums it all up pretty well

EFF has a really good audio response to press releases from Diebold on their site

whereas in india many voters see a monitor once every 5 years : when they vote.

Two corrections.

1. The voting machine is not a monitor. A simple device where you just need to press a button to vote your candidate. More info here.

2. They vote thrice - National, State and local elections - in 5 yrs. If the Govt does not last its full term, once again elections are conducted.

oops! got the numbers wrong.

the EVM was first used in Kerala Legislative Assembly election held in May, 1982 and first use in a national election was in 1999 election. the story is here
a presentation small about how EMVs work is here

India's system is a simple box that counts. The system in the U.S. is typically more like an automated teller machine (ATM) with a computer behind it.

The Mercuri method of electronic voting allows the voter to inspect a paper printout of the cast ballot before it lands in the box for use only in the event of a recount. Brazil (and other places) use it. I would like to see it in use wherever direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting is used.

The big quirk in the United States is the decentrallized nature of the voting systems - every county (of which there are about 3400) selects its own voting machines, ballots, and so forth.

I would still worry about ballot rigging, etc. I can still see ways in which such things can be manipulated. Other than ballot rigging, my other fear would be privacy. Maybe you could find ways to deduce who voted for which candidate.

I would still worry about ballot rigging, etc. I can still see ways in which such things can be manipulated. Other than ballot rigging, my other fear would be privacy. Maybe you could find ways to deduce who voted for which candidate.

Electronic Voting Machines in India FAQ

As far as I know they were introduced more than 5 years ago. It is a technology developed indigenously.

I guess this will attract all India-bashing trolls out there, but electronic voting has been a common feature in the last few Indian (both federal and state) elections. (All elections in India are conducted through a disinterested regulatory body called the Election Commission of India). Most people widely welcome the use of Electronic Voting Machines; there have been lesser instances of rigging and booth-capturing after their deployment. Besides, there's been a cost-effectiveness as well; suddenly general elections have become cheaper.

Oh yes, EVM's are being used in the ongoing Kashmir elections as well; since the Kashmir issue is highly emotive (and consequently, irrevocably factionalised) for most people, I'll refrain from commenting on the EVMs' effectiveness there. But yes, the response in most other places in India has been positive.