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Should Voting Software Be Open Source?
jallen02 asks: "CNN has a quick little piece in their technology section about the electronic voting systems and their security. They ask, 'What about security?' with regards to the electronic voting systems. And then a researcher from AT&T labs is quoted in the article. Basically, saying the systems should be open sourced, and he quotes the party line for open source regarding security: more eyeballs means more flaws are found and fixed. The big question raised here is ripe for debate.. should electronic voting systems software be opened for the public to see?"
Let's look at the big picture. OSS advocates talk about wanting to be able to examine software. One person above said people will trust a more open process. I think we forget that this is only a small part of the picture. 99% of all voters won't be able to make heads or tails of the source and 99% won't care one way or the other.
/. crowd) have a tendancy to think we're better than everyone because we're so smart (but not smart enough to learn humility and to remember many of us are writing from democracies that supposedly view all people as equal -- and NOT that some are more equal than others). So the bigger picture includes the question of if Joe Voter will care if s/he is voding on an OSS system.
We (or at least the
All Joe/Jane Voter will care about is if the vote is registered correctly and that all the votes are counted ONE time (and only one time and not less than one time).
That's the bigger picture we forget about. So how does OSS fit into that picture?
Even in the big picture, OSS has an advantage. I think it would be necessary to not only use OSS, but to make the install and setup processes open to be viewed. While few voters will decide to watch it, the entire open process can be publicized in adverts as part of an overall voter education campaign. While Joe/Jane Voter won't care if the software is OSS, they will care if a number of people in the public eye (not government officials) appear on ads saying they've seen the process and can testify to it's openness and fairness. The gov't could even make a big deal about how everything is open for inspection. Part of this would be pointing out that if someone didn't trust the system, they could hire an expert of their choice to examine the code and hardward specs.
So in the short run, OSS will only matter to nerds. In the long run, if OSS is part of an overall open system that is highly publicized in a voter education campaign, and it is made clear that those without the technical skills to analyze the system on their own can go down to the local Rent-A-Nerd temp agency, find simeone they feel they can trust, hire that person, and have them analyze the system. That will start to bring the openness and strength of the system home directly to Joe/Jane Voter.