Evoting in the News

key45 writes "Just a few days after California rejects Diebold E-Voting machines, and Ireland bans e-voting too, the Information Technology Association of America (which represents election equipment makers and other technology companies) released a poll showing that the majority of Americans trust those machines. The war for public opinion is on!" Reader theRG writes "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission held hearings on May 5 about the pros and cons of electronic voting machines. They debated whether or not machines should have paper trails, and what standards should be set. Meanwhile, NPR reports on California's recent decertification of Diebold machines and on one Ohio county's switch from punchcards to electronic voting." And finally, our own OSDN has a report from the election commission meeting: Joe Barr writes "Thom Wysong has a report at NewsForge this morning on the first public meeting of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Questions like whether or not a voter verifiable audit trail and open source should be mandated for e-voting solutions were the order of the day."

Comments

Why, why, oh WHY?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

What I find amazing is that in the face of arguably questionable performance, security, and auditing issues with e-voting machines, the vast majority of elections officials still want to move full steam rather than wait until a solid solution is developed. Remember, these are the same people that will be developing the ulcers on election night when their systems start shitting out garbage. They have to realize that they will be under extreme scrutiny. Why put yourself and your staff through this? Makes me think of payola, but that's not really realistic. Maybe the executive elections staff training is in Bermuda or Hawaii?