Open Source Voting Software Concept Released

filesiteguy writes "Wired is reporting that the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation has announced the first release of Linux- and Ruby-based election management software. This software should compete in the same realm as Election Systems & Software, as well as Diebold/Premiere for use by County registrars. Mitch Kapor — founder of Lotus 1-2-3 — and Dean Logan, Registrar for Los Angeles County, and Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State, all took part in a formal announcement ceremony. The OSDV is working with multiple jurisdictions, activists, developers and other organizations to bring together 'the best and brightest in technology and policy' to create 'guidelines and specifications for high assurance digital voting services.' The announcement was made as part of the OSDV Trust the Vote project, where open source tools are to be used to create a certifiable and sustainable open source voting system."

Comments

Programmer Thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, programmers thinking software will change the world.

Elections are not based on trust of software, it is based on trust of the PROCESS.

Don't trust the PROCESS, and it doesn't matter how trustworthy your software is.

I want an PROCESS that has ACCOUNTABILITY. A "Bug" in your software means someone goes to jail for negligence, or pays for the cost of a reelection.

Here in the great white North, we have a paper ballot. A simple "X" inside a circle. Human verifiable, countable, no switches, electrons, software, etc. Weeks or months after the election I can see the recounts.

Software can solve a lot of problems, trust is not one of them.

Computers should count votes

[symbolset]

Once they've been granted suffrage. Not before.

I post this same post every time we have a computerized vote counting thread. My objection to this has nothing to do with whether it's a secret proprietary process or a totally open FOSS solution. With each generation of computer technology we gain the opportunity to go wrong with greater speed than ever before. Yes, proprietary solutions are horrid and there's some evidence that they've been used to steal votes and they're truly evil. Unfortunately, FOSS tools can be abused too.

I guess my point is that the process of counting votes using humans is an important part of representative democracy because it doesn't just achieve the goal of "counting the vote". It also impresses on the participants the importance of sanity and trust and impartiality in the process, without which constant reinforcement we can expect democracy to rapidly go off the rails. Compared to that social good, the importance of getting same-day results fades in importance.