Federal Panel [not NIST] Rejects Paper Trail For E-Voting

emil10001 writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has rejected a proposal suggesting that electronic voting have a paper trail. The draft recommendation was developed by NIST scientists, who called out electronic voting machines as being 'impossible' to secure." From the article: "Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.' The proposal failed to obtain the 8 of 15 votes needed to pass. Five states — Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina — use machines without a paper record exclusively. Eleven states and the District either use them in some jurisdictions or allow voters to chose whether to use them or some other voting system." So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.

Comments

First p

[Harmonious Botch]

Hey! Where did the rest of my subject line go?? It was there! I typed an'o', an 's', and a 't'! These dang computers are so insecure. I want a paper trail of my postings.

Re:First p

[Harmonious Botch]

Posting on slashdot probably has more effect than voting.

Great quote

[Daniel Dvorkin]

"You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware."

Um ... yeah, like the switch from paper ballots and/or mechanical voting machines to electronic voting machines in the first place?

Stupidest. Excuse. For. Shilling. For. The. Forces. Of. Evil. EVER.

It shouldn't only be about cost.

[Kookus]

So what if there's a paper trail? It means absolutely nothing unless it's actually used, and is accessible by the people casting the votes! This is something that is wrong with the current system also!

I have no idea who I voted for in any election. I know who I thought I voted for, but I have no idea if it was counted that way. Where can I go to find that out? Let's say there is some way for me to determine if my vote was counted in a certain way. What about everyone else? Is there a way to make sure the vote they think was mine was exclusively mine?

I'd rather have the problems associated with receipts with ids on them that I can log online to see who I voted for instead of the current system.

Too Costly?

[gt_mattex]

So, disregarding the fact that their own scientists cited the machine's insecurities, the executives feel that the 'cost' of replacing or updating the machines is prohibitive for our countries (arguably) most important decision?

This whole things reeks of pork and the 'old boys' club'

Things have changed in two days

[DavidinAla]

That news article was from two days ago. Check out what happened since then: http://www.techliberation.com/archives/041383.php

Story is out of date!

[Philom]

This story is badly out of date. The panel voted again the next day and reached a compromise that will require future electronic voting machines to have paper trails. See:

http://news.com.com/Panel+changes+course%2C+approv es+e-voting+checks/2100-1028_3-6140956.html
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1095

Re:Story is out of date!

[emil10001]

That's interesting, I submitted the story yesterday at noon, and hadn't seen anything new on it. But reading the update is also quite interesting, because the issue remains that the voting machines which are currently in place, and have no paper trail, will stay there as they are. The proposal that passed leaves it to the "next generation" of machines, and does not seem to affect the ones currently in place. So, this story is still relevant, because those problematic machines are still in place, and will stay there.

Re:Bad math or uncounted votes?

[onkelonkel]

Exit polls show the other 3 members were in favor of the motion, but there was no paper trail to verify this when the votes were recounted.

Not cost

[amigabill]

So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?

No. Accountability in voting will be a joke because that would be an inconvenience to the Inner Party achieving their goals, whatever those may be. Cost is simply an excuse for the public.

So ... accountability in voting

[nullchar]

So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?

And accountability in voting will be a joke because the first implementation was a total fuck up?

In software, the solution to this problem would be: eVoting 2.0
Changelog:

• Added verifiable paper trail for each ballot cast (not a total summary printout at the end)
• Replaced Diebold with open source hardware and software
• Restored confidence in democracy

Re:In short... Yes .. and ... no

[ShieldW0lf]

Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.'

You know, if each American who reads slashdot went out and smashed just ONE voting machine each with a sledgehammer, this entire argument would be a moot point.

I do think we need better accountability in elections, because it's terrible that we can't be certain in the country that's supposed to be the leader in democracy.

Is this a joke? America has replaced more democratic leaders with puppet dictators than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia put together, and their own democracy looks more and more like a trick of the light with each passing day.