Touch-Screen Voting Snags Continue

micromoog writes "New touchscreen voting machines caused problems last night in the suburbs of Washington D.C.. Several machines failed and had to be rebooted, and nine were actually removed from the site, repaired, and returned, in violation of election laws. The machines also failed to report their results correctly due to network problems. At least one lawsuit is pending. Interesting quote: 'County elections officials said it was the slowest performance in memory for counting votes on election night.'" Read on for more on how the current crop of electronic voting machines are faring.

Not every electronic voting machine misstep comes from Diebold; reader zznate points out that the Virginia machines came from Advanced Voting Solutions (dcw3 butts in: "The slogan on their home page really gives you a warm fuzzy: 'Helping Shape American History for over one hundred years.'"), as well as that the EFF won a decision for an accelerated court date of November 17 in their attempt to stop Diebold from shutting down sites that make the infamous memos available. Let's all hope this is the first in a series of many wins for the EFF against the Diebold folks and crappy e-voting schemes in general. Have you donated lately?"

Reader meadowreach writes points out more trouble on the other coast: "From news.com: 'As voters in California go to the polls, the state is launching an investigation into alleged illegal tampering with electronic voting machines in a San Francisco Bay Area county.' Diebold upgrades software without letting the state know? How reassuring."

Generic Guy writes "CNN is running a story about California not certifying the Diebold voting machines and instead opening an investigation into the use of uncertified systems. Maybe there is still hope for democracy in the U.S."

And from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Peter Desnoyers writes "Cambridge uses an optical scanner system, where you fill out SAT-style ovals with a pen and the election officer feeds them into a scanning machine. From last night's preliminary results on the Cambridge website:

'In two precincts at 7:55 and 7:59pm the memory cards reached capacity. To ensure that every ballot was counted , the Election Commission has decided to rerun the ballots for 9-1, Lexington Avenue Fire House and 11-3, Churchill Avenue. We expect that it will take between one to two hours.'

I interpret this to mean that they took all the paper ballots out of the box and ran them back through the reader. (with a bigger memory card?) In the mean time, voters were able to continue voting and no votes were lost."

Comments

Rebooting the voting machine

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aww man, Windows crashed again. We probably lost 3000 votes due to the reboot."

"Don't worry about it, 3000 votes isn't enough to make a difference!"

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Dielectric]

Oddly enough, Diebold also makes ATMs. I wonder why the same accountability standards weren't used for the voting machines?

This just gets murkier the more I think about it.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Because they're nearly different companies... That is, Diebold bought the firm that makes the voting machines, and I doubt that Diebold the ATM guys made any sweeping changes to the new Diebold Election guys (DESI), especially since they made the purchase in January 2002..... yahoo .com link for more info

Violation of election laws

[macemoneta]

OK, I keep hearing about the violations in election laws going on, but I never hear about people being taken away in handcuffs and being brought to trial. If the laws aren't being enforced, then they don't really exist. Might as well vote 50 or 60 times while you're going out; it looks like a free-for-all.

Re:Violation of election laws

[kiwimate]

Such a good point! One of the most telling points was the tale of nine machines being removed from the site for repair and then brought back onsite in violation of election laws. Forget for a moment the problem of the election machines failing. Aren't there supposed to be people supervising who know that you can't do this and who should've stopped the machines from being removed and brought back on-site? If there is a problem, then there needs to be a protocol to follow, and the people in charge at each voting site must know that protocol and enforce it.

By the by, I live just outside of Philadelphia and we had an election yesterday (mayor and various other positions). Listening to the news, I kept hearing the news casters talking about how wonderful it was to be able to participate in this democratic process and just about going into tears over how fabulous it was to have this right. They sounded like they were somewhere that had only had free elections for a few years and everyone was still getting used to the idea.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Joe Decker]

Tempting thought, isn't it? I'm curious who took the machines to repair, the registrar's office or the manufacturer.

As a learning experience and a lark, I worked a polling area in San Jose, California yesterday. The machines were "Sequoia Edge", and worked well, save that some people had trouble figuring out that they needed to push a bit harder to get the voter card into the voting machine.

Had a machine gone down, I can easily see how the folks in that polling place might have allowed the machine to be taken, repaired, and brought back. Each of the four folks full-time at the polling place was required to have only a few hours of training, much of it centered around operational issues and not legal issues. Poll workers are mostly retired folks who do elections for fun or small profit ($95, covering fourteen hours of work and three of training.)

I couldn't tell you if such a removal and return would be illegal under California law, I bet that's true for most of the poll-workers in California last night.

I do know that down machines would be reported to the registrar's office, where presumably they would have some legal responsibilty to insure the right things happen. How many people would be watching the machine at any given point during the process is open to question.

In my opinion, for the systems I used and the procedures and people in place, the easiest way to cheat the system would be to get a couple poll-workers in on whatever you wanted to do. With that, it'd be easy to tamper with results no matter what voting system was used.

You want fair elections, nine machines whose votes are subject to concern just doesn't bother me to the extent that more fundamental problems with election procedure do. In California at least, in most cases (there's an exception in a corner case called Fail-Safe provisional voting) there's no requirement that you demonstrate identity when you vote. You just have to sign in. No IDs, etc. Big deal. Given that voters are never removed from the registration roles in California (I believe this is true even after death, but the cases I've heard of may have been glitches), I'm suspecting there's a lot more vote fraud caused by folks voting who aren't legally entitled to than there is by subversive maniuplation of machines in that particular case.

Not that I'm not bothered by the various Diebold scandals. And I do agree that significant violations of election law should be punished severely. But I hear a lot of this electronic voting discussion as hysteria, and that concerns me as well.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Urox]

I'm in San Jose also. There are two polling places in the apartment complex where I live (because it it THAT huge). They said they'd tabulate the votes after the polls closed.

Around 8:30, the power went out in the apartment complex. The whole thing. *IF* the machines were still attached, I'm not sure they had UPSes. What does that do to the tallying? What does that do to the data stored? What will a reboot do to the system?

It was a little frightening that when I dropped off my absentee ballot, that there was no lock on the box to go to the registrar's office. The guy was able to open that puppy up completely (without me needing to drop it into the provided security slot) and show that I was the only absentee drop off so far. I can definitely see how ballots could be "lost" there.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Joe Decker]

Around 8:30, the power went out in the apartment complex. The whole thing. *IF* the machines were still attached, I'm not sure they had UPSes. What does that do to the tallying? What does that do to the data stored? What will a reboot do to the system?

Power: The Edge machines have internal batteries good for a few hours, built-in. The machines are left plugged-in the night before the election to make sure the batteries are fully charged. You know you've lost power even if you're outside because a yellow bar appears at the bottom of the LCD, it goes red when your internal battery pack gets within ten minutes of failing. We also had a separate external battery pack. We also could call for additional battery power (we'd have hours) if it looked like we were going to run out. Finally, in case all of this fails, there's a backup plan involving paper and the box you dropped your absentee ballot in.

So, it's unlikely you'd actually reboot due to power failure. Still, Reboot doesn't seem to kill the results card in most cases. We didn't do that catastrophically, but we did turn (in training) the machine off and then on while the polls open/closed switch was left open, the right thing happens there (it notes it on the log, the counts stay there.)

I wouldn't want to try it during the period immediately after the user presses "Yes, I really want to cast this ballot.", it appears that some sort of NVRAM is written there. FYI, The results cartridge looks kinda like a PCMCIA card, not precisely, but that's the basic idea.

You don't need extra power to tally the results, etc. The machines have a small printer in the back, they print out totals at the beginning and end of the election (as determined by the turn of a knob.) The internal battery pack could run the printer. You've still got the results card, as well.

It was a little frightening that when I dropped off my absentee ballot, that there was no lock on the box to go to the registrar's office.

We had a small blue plastic seal, it's a little plastic doodad that connects the two zipper pulls, you can close the seal through the zippers but you can't open the seal without breaking it. It's just a small #'d piece of plastic, that seal should have been put on after the first absentee ballot was cast (after showing that first abs. voter that the box was empty), and should have only been taken off during the closing of the polling place. It's more likely they forgot (or didn't know to) put it on.

Similar seals are used to protect against various bits of tampering on the electronic machines and in the final "bag of results" that is driven to the registrar's office (or some local field centers). The one that protects the results cartridge has its code # paid special attention to.

If you didn't see a blue plastic thingee (it wouldn't have been big, like a master lock), it's worth mentioning it to the registrar, but more likely mistraining of the poll workers than actual malfaesence. (We had a mistake in our own implementation there, we used a yellow one instead of a blue one, but no real harm was done to the system thereby, it's just a piece of plastic.)

Note that losing an absentee ballot would be possible after the poll-workers open the box after polling, as well. As during the day during aan election, there'd be some chance another poll-worker would catch you at it, unless you're in cahoots. Still nice to lock the ballot box during the election, though. (If nothing else, it saves you from having to tell someone you won't retrieve their ballot when they cast it and then say they made a mistake!)

What's wrong with

[reboot246]

using paper ballots that are scanned? You can have the results instantly and the ballots are locked inside the box in case of a recount.

Just because the technology of touchscreen voting is considered "cutting edge" doesn't make it better.

Re:What's wrong with

[Shakrai]

using paper ballots that are scanned? You can have the results instantly and the ballots are locked inside the box in case of a recount.

My idea (as noted in a previous article about this subject) is to use touch-pad voting machines that print a paper ballot that would then be scanned. In the event of a recount (or a dispute with the e-voting machine) these ballots could be counted by hand.

The machine prints the ballot so there is no chance of user error (unless they can't figure out how to use the bilingual touchscreen). The user gets to see the results before he drops the paper into the ballot box.

Isn't this the best of both worlds?

Re:What's wrong with

[Flarenet]

This leads to a question I have: why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?

I'm only familiar with elections here in Canada. Here we have a ballot with X number of names on it with a circle beside each name. You're handed your ballot and a pencil and then go into a booth to mark an "X" beside the name you want. The the ballot is folded and placed in the ballot box. No problems with hanging chads or ballots that are confusing to read. Why isn't a low tech system like this used in the States? Is it a population problem? (Too many people to allow this to scale well?)

Re:What's wrong with

[Greedo]

My idea (as noted in a previous article about this subject) is to use touch-pad voting machines that print a paper ballot that would then be scanned. In the event of a recount (or a dispute with the e-voting machine) these ballots could be counted by hand.

Hey, how about a touch-pad voting machine, that prints an empty paper ballot, which you then fill in by hand, and then put it through a scanner?!

Foolproof, I tell you!

Re:What's wrong with

[SVDave]

This leads to a question I have: why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?

One factor is that ballots in the United States tend to be quite long, due to our multiple levels of government and the fact that elected officials serve set terms (with terms at the various levels being synchronized). In the general election next year, for example, I'll be voting for three federal office (President, Representative, Senator), a state equivalent of a Representative, city council positions, a county council representative, various other boards (e.g. school board), probably a dozen statewide referendums and maybe one or two local (city- or county-wide) referendums. And it generally takes a month to certify an election, even with an automated counting process (which is why Arnold Schwarzenneger hasn't been sworn in as governor of California yet).

What's it like in Canada? Does a general election include anything other than federal MP? Do you have separate elections for sepearate offices?

Re:What's wrong with

[iabervon]

The third section of this article actually talks about Cambridge MA, which does exactly that. Somerville, next door (where I voted yesterday), does that as well. And Cambridge actually did have a hardware problem and rescanned the ballots.

As for the capabilities of this system, you can actually do ranking quite easily (and Cambridge actually does use ranking in their voting, although Somerville does not); you don't write numbers, but you fill in an oval in the grid for each rank, like on the SAT.

Cambridge City Council elections have an "instant runoff" system, which uses some algorithm that eliminates candidates who have either won or lost, and moves votes to candidates the voter ranked next until the right number of candidates have been chosen. It's what you'd expect for the city that has both MIT and Harvard in it.

Re:What's wrong with

[steveg]

At least here in California, I can go to any polling place as long as I can confirm my identity

Not in my part of California. I have to go to the precinct that contains the address at which I'm registered. They have my name and address on a list, and they check it off.

If I go to the wrong precinct (last election my polling place handled three precincts) they tell me I'm not listed there and to go to the correct one.

I suppose if you were registered multiple times at different addresses you might be able to scam them, but you don't just have your choice of polling places. Not in Bakersfield, anyway.

This is a non-issue

[Hard_Code]

Really, you guys are getting all worked up over nothing. Polls clearly show:

Americans in favor of unregulated electronic voting: 25%
Americans in favor of strict auditing and accounting of electronic voting systems: -75%.

So clearly this is nothing to get bothered about.

Oh no.

[DrEldarion]

Scantron sheets for voting? That's NOT a good idea. I'm currently working for a company that deals with standardized tests, and those things are a PAIN to clean up in the database becaues NOBODY can fill the damn things out correctly. I'd say at least a good 5% of them have messed up bubbles in the user/test-ID field ALONE. The answer fields usually fare much worse.

These aren't just 2nd graders, either. High school tests are usually WORSE in this aspect.

Re:Oh no.

[cmowire]

My personal model for the best system is what my county uses.

There's a big fscking arrow with a gap in it, not a little bubble. You have a big black marker of the correct optimal type. They tell you to connect the arrow. We're talking about a broadsheet-sized ballot card here, so space is decidedly *not* a problem. There's no key, everything you need is on the ballot.

When you are done, you put it in the machine. If you screwed up or made some incorrect marks, it tells you, so there's an immediate feedback loop. If you don't mark a candidate, it will require an election official to make sure that you did, in fact, mean to leave it blank.

Paper record, cheaper than a computer, a check to make sure that it will scan before the ballot leaves your sight.

A solution that cant fail.

[blanks]

Line the two (or more) candidates next to one another, voters stand in line.

Each voter gets to walk up and hit the person they are against winning to, aka the one they do not want to win. Last man standing wins the election.

Re:A solution that cant fail.

[jareds]

No wonder Schwarzenegger won California!

And the Cambridge optical scanners are....

[jdreed1024]

... made by Diebold, it should be noted. They are the AccuVote OS models. This is not indicated in the article summary, however it is the case. I voted in Cambridge last night, and noted with mixed emotions the little Diebold logo as I slid my ballot in, and then the machine rejected it. (It worked on the second try)

The March of Technology

[schmidt349]

One potential problem with the rollout of electronic voting hardware and software in this country is that many people automatically assume that electronic devices are more reliable and less prone to failure than the older voting hardware, when it certainly appears that this is not the case.

I'm sure that at least some non-tech-savvy election officials are content with the Diebold machines on the basis that "at least they won't have dimpled chads," or something similar. As a result, the people in the know (ie, anyone who knows the inherent unreliability and insecurity of the Diebold devices) should be making it very clear to everyone else that the superiority of newer technology ain't necessarily so.

Sign the HR2239 petition!

[Eraserhd]

... and talk to your representatives in the house to get them to sign on. HR2239 requires touch-screen voting machines to print a receipt which the voter can read, then drop into a lock-box. This receipt is then used for recounts, and in a mandatory recount of .5% of districts chosen at random to verify the accuracy of the machines.

While you could theoretically build a cryptographic system to do something similar, I'd rather not have a theoretic democracy!

(Petitions are linked to at the bottom of VerifiedVoting.org.)

Re:Sign the HR2239 petition!

[Eraserhd]

The point is that, if the machine does not produce a voter-verifiable ballot, you cannot guaruntee that your vote was recorded. We have instances of machines loosing up to 100,000 votes due to software errors (Florida, 2002) since all they have to do is print totals at the end of the night.

While a manual recount can have issues, these issues aren't of the same order of magnitude and are controllable. Not to mention that we still have the paper trail if we have any evidence of foul play.

Politics Over Performance

[goldspider]

Since the 2000 debacle, politicians seem to have been clamoring all over each other to be the first to bring electronic voting to their constituants. It is obvious from reading this article (did you?) that these systems are far from ready to be used to determine something as important as the leader of the free world for 4 years.

So a few old goats in Florida don't know their right from their left. Big deal! It was hardly a symptom of a problem that, had it really been a problem, would have plagued the voting system since John Adams was elected president.

So now our politicians have decided that the solution to fix a complicated system is to replace it with an even more complicated system. How this kind of logic keeps these idiots in office, I will never understand, but it is clear that these new voting systems are not ready for next year's election.

Why don't we get our system from Australia?

[adamfranco]

Electronic voting in the US is in horrid shape.

Seriously, why don't we get/license the well working system that was put in place in Australia? Yes, its not domestically produced, but the source is there and can be verified. If domestic production is an issue, do we have any reason to believe that all of the Windows code in the Diebold machines was written on American soil? Also, it works. When our own system can say that a switch could be considered, but for now I'd like my vote to be counted on software that has proven itself.

removing the machines?

[DavidH_Mphs]

ok -- so the fix-it people removed some of the machines, took them away to the fix-it place, repaired them, and then took them back to the voting sites?

This raises serious questions about the accuracy of the count, no matter how many machines had to be fixed. One machine or twenty machines, if you've got to take one away for repair & then bring it back, the accuracy of the data must immediately be called into question.

If someone has to physically remove a machine, then something must be seriously wrong with it. What if they accidentally erased the data & then, in an effort to cover their mistakes, 'fudged' the votes?

On top of that, election officials made a stupid error -- a preventable error. [Some] memory cards were full before the close of the polls.

Election officials know exactly how many people are registered to vote in a given precinct. Therefore, they have the ability to determine the amount of memory they'd need on the machines. They should have asked the software folks, "how much memory will I need for each registered voter?"

Instead, voters are left to fend for themselves as inept voting officials stumble their way through technology.

This is completely absurd & inexcusable!

How hard is it...

[ThisIsFred]

...to design a reliable electronic voting machine? Why does it need a full operating system basic on modern hardware? Why does it need a touchscreen? And for heaven's sake, why does it have to be networked? Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance here, but I would have approached the problem entirely differently. I probably would have ditched any type of video output for a number of labelled buttons, made a simple mainboard based on a reliable, cheap 8bit CPU, and had the results stored in EEPROM, not sent down a network. I also would make the firmware and hardware available to everyone, far in advance of the election. I also would have tested it under many bogus elections, and would have accepted input in the form of peer review.

I can't believe we can't make an electronic voting machine that is as reliable as a slot machine. If we're going to do it this way, I'll show my support for the older, mechanical machines. What are the benefits?

Hmmm...

[The Fanta Menace]

You know, I'm quite happy with voting on paper... why do we need electronic voting?

Jebus jumped up christ

[YrWrstNtmr]

it's not that hard, people!

You want 'electronic voting'?

Fine, here it is:
Registered voter gets handed a paper ballot. Completely human readable. Little circles next to each person/issue.
Voter enters the booth
Voter inserts paper ballot into the slot below the (oooh, shiny!) touchscreen.
Voter selects, each person issue they want to vote for. Change at any time.
At the bottom, the voter presses "Done". Maybe even a confirmation "Are you sure?"
Paper ballot is spit out of the slot, with the circles filled in for each item the person has voted for. The touchscreen is merely a printer.
Voter can verify the paper against what is on the screen.
Voter walks out, slides the paper ballot into a ScanTron. Said Scantron counts and tabulates as necessary.
The paper ballot goes into a locked box for future verification if necessary.

Done.

Now, remember...

[Jerf]

Now, remember, those hundreds of educated Computer Scientists scared of current E-voting trends are just morons, and the election companies have it all under control. (more info)

These events prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election companies are completely trustworthy, and public officials should continue to poo-poo the concerns of people who know what they are talking about. After all,

"I don't know what the holdup is," Margaret K. Luca (D), secretary of the county's three-person elections board, said late last night. "I thought we had it covered. We tested all week in the county."

They tested the machines all last week . Obviously electronic voting is working.

(Satire aside: This points out the problem very nicely; the "secretary of the county's three-person elections board" is simply not qualified to assess the ability of a voting system to perform in advance of the actual vote. This is intended as an elitist statement, it's just simple truth. "Secretaries of county election boards" should probably put a bit more trust in the concerns thousands of knowlegable citizens have with no vested interest in selling anything, and a lot less trust in companies trying to sell them snake oil. For one thing, they obviously don't know how to test these systems, or they would have found these problems.

"Stress testing", anyone? If the news report linked to can be trusted, this was nothing more then a bog-stadard "lack of resources" issue, the kind easily diagnosed by a knowlegable tester, and fixed in advance given enough time, but something that most people have no clue about. The idea of "stress testing" may be obvious to most of us, but we are not average.)

GOP suit

[cluge]

Wait the GOP is suing? What about all that stuff I read on the internet that Diebold is in the pocket of the GOP? How can I believe anything I read on the Internet any more? Does this mean that Diebold is in the Democrats pockets?

Answer:Yes, it's ture, Diebold isn't in anyone's pockets - they are simply incompetent.

I will not vote on any machine that doesn't produce a verifiable paper trail at the time I vote. Neither should you.

What should have been done

[phorm]

When the first "electronic voting" machines went in, I think that they should have accompanied a paper-vote, or perhaps put out a paper receipt indicating the vote that could be stuffed in a ballot box. This way, you could use the physical (paper) votes to compare to the accuracy/loss in the electronic ones.

First-hand account

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I work as one of two computer consultants responsible for overseeing the election tabulation process in my county. Yesterday's election was the first time we used the new electronic voting machines (iVotronic).

Things went off without a hitch. We began tabulating at about 6:30 and were done by 8:00. We used to use punch cards, and would normally get done around 11:00. So you can see why a lot of government officials are praising these things. They are faster, easier to use, and less prone to voting mistakes. Last year there were dozens of cards punched backwards or upside-down, hanging chads, and whatnot. That really slows things down a lot.

That said, I don't like these machines. There's a fundamental flaw in the construction that makes the whole thing insecure. Given the incentive ($$$), it would be incredibly easy for an employee of the manufacturer to slip some deviant code into the machine that said, "on election day make every fifth vote go towards this candidate".

I think the best analogy was one I heard on NPR the other day (I believe it was David Dill). The current process with electronic voting is akin to walking into a booth and telling your vote to a person on the other side of a curtain. Did he write down what you told him to? Who knows.

new war driving challenge...

[pixelpusher220]

from the AVN web site

These things are wireless.

All those that think this is a BAD idea raise your hands...

Actually using the systems myself..

[color of static]

I voted in the State/county election in question Fairafx Virginia and I can tell you these things really troubled me.

We have been using a combination computer mechanical system for years which I felt very comfortable with. Yesterday we walked in to find the new "WinVote" machines. They offered no privacy and were actually slowing down peoples vote entry by quite a bit (I saw most people take over 10 minutes to vote compared to one or two I would normally see).

The officials were telling me about how one machine stopped working and couldn't be revived. The others they had apparently been able to reboot multiple times to keep going. They of course didn't know how the vote count was protected in these cases. I have a guess though.

Before each person votes, an official inserts a smart card. The application restarts, displays some statistics and proceeds to allow me to vote. My guess is that the results are copied to the smart cards. In that case the state of the machine isn't really in question so long as the tally increases as the voter voted.

What worries me is the use of smart cards. Now these tend to hold a handful of memory (8K to 64K in general), and can run some code internally. My question is, if a machine crashes then could it alter the contents of the smart card? A write only smart card would not have enough room for a busy polling location. A card where a count is updated would be vulnerable to coding or transfer errors.

Like the user who asks for a database when they need a filing cabinet, I think this may be an idea to early for its time.

Tamper-proof machines in India

[rsidd]

The machines' manufacturers in India claim that the machines are tamper-proof. This is 1980s technology (and the article I link to is from 1999).

I'm not an expert but it seems reasonable. These machines are standalone units, not networked; they have hardcoded (machine-language) software on their chips, with no facility for modifying it or running an external program. To tamper with them you'd have to replace the motherboard with your own, on which you've embedded your own program, and even then it probably won't work since the machine has various safeguards for tampering. And these machines are extremely rugged and sturdy, and easy to use (I've handled them) and inexpensive (around $100 each).

Sometimes antique push-button technology is better than the latest cutting-edge stuff (anyway, who needs touchscreens, what's wrong with buttons?)

In Britain

[mrsev]

In Britain we ahve all our votes on paper and they are all hand counted and stored. We get our election results by the morining. Even for small Scotish islands. It is not such a big job to count a few votes. Each person can count several thousand per hour. This means that you need only need 500 counters per million votes and it is done in a night.

When the result is close there is a recount and I have never seen the second result to be out by more than 5-10 per 60,000 votes.

There is an important principle that every person has the right to have their vote counted. Errors above 1 per 1000 are not acceptable. The system must not only be fair but be seen to be fair. Furthermore there must be a permanent record of the votes cast. How else can we be sure that all was fair.

Because the eVACS system is not an improvement.

[jbn-o]

Seriously, why don't we get/license the well working system that was put in place in Australia? Yes, its not domestically produced, but the source is there and can be verified.

Because there are serious problems with that system. The software issues are virtually a red herring and do not make their machines trustworthy. Although it seems ironic to some, the same issues exist with free software-operated and non-free software-operated voting machines. Wired revealed big problems with eVACS but buried the description of the problems midway into their article and then posted their eVACS article under a misleading headline which is probably why you reached the conclusion you did. I commented on this system in that thread and responded to one of the system's developers when the software trustworthiness question was raised.

The Australian system you refer to does not allow the voter to verify that their vote was recorded correctly and there is no permanent non-computer record of the votes to recount after the election. Even though the article quotes one of the system developers saying as much, this showstopper revelation is midway into the article and then apparently ignored for the purpose of writing the article's title. From the article:

The [eVACS] machine does not include a voter-verifiable receipt, something critics of U.S. systems want added to machines and voting machine makers have resisted.

A voter-verifiable receipt is a printout from the machine, allowing the voter to check the vote before depositing the receipt into a secure ballot box at the polling station. It can be used as a paper audit trail in case of a recount.

Green [Phillip Green, electoral commissioner for the Australian Capital territory] said the commission rejected the printout feature to keep expenses down. The system cost $125,000 to develop and implement. The printouts would have increased that cost significantly, primarily to pay for personnel to manage and secure the receipts and make sure voters didn't walk off with them.

Quinn, however, thinks all e-voting systems should offer a receipt. "There's no reason voters should trust a system that doesn't have it, and they shouldn't be asked to," he said.

"Why on earth should (voters) have to trust me -- someone with a vested interest in the project's success?" he said. "A voter-verified audit trail is the only way to 'prove' the system's integrity to the vast majority of electors, who after all, own the democracy."

As for the costs of securing and storing such receipts, Quinn said, "Did anyone ever say that democracy was meant to be cheap?"

There's no way to determine if only the software you trust is running on the machine you vote with. Your /. post is vastly overrated (+5 Insightful).