Open Source Electronic Voting Progress Limited

An anonymous reader points us to a story about how the problems with electronic voting mostly stem from one source: the lack of mandated standardization. The LinuxInsider article goes on to suggest that once the issue of a universal voting platform is solved, the way is paved for open-source software to address concerns over accuracy and transparency. Though the article states that "no open source program for voting machines yet exists," it should be noted that such software was successfully tested earlier this month. Quoting: "People debate the merits of e-voting for a variety of reasons, including suspicion of new technologies and a general distrust of politics, according to Jamie McKown, Wiggins professor of government and polity at the College of the Atlantic. 'Reports on e-voting security often de-contextualize the history of voter fraud in this country, as if boxes were somehow assumed to be better. You constantly hear calls for paper trails, and open and free inspection of voting machine source code. But it's a very thorny issue and one that has a lot of facets,' McKown told LinuxInsider."

Comments

Re:Nope

[vonPoonBurGer]

I completely, absolutely agree with you, mainly because paper ballots are what we use here in Canada. And just so you know, they don't have to take long to count. Here in Canada, if you want to run a candidate in a riding, you have to provide someone called a scrutineer to every polling station in that riding. The scrutineers are usually low-paid party staff, or completely unpaid volunteers. Each party/candidate has one scrutineer at each polling station, and once the polls close, they all count every ballot. Two important facets of the system prevent counting fraud. One, the counts from each scrutineer have to match, or they don't get to go home. And two, any interested voter is allowed to watch the counting process. The budget for Elections Canada is far, FAR less per capita than in the US, and we know who our new prime minister is on the night of the election. I shake my head and sigh every time I see one of these threads on /. advocating technology as the answer. You're barking up the wrong tree, folks, and wasting an assload of money in the process.