Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working your comments into amendments before the bill is taken up in January.
I think we will definitely require compiler source per your first suggestion.
As for your second suggestion, the county will select a machine to make available to the public for inspection. The vendor will never know which machine the public will be able to inspect in any given county. Additionally, the county will be responsible, in concert with the Secretary of State, for ensuring that the certified versions of all hardware and software are in the machine and not other code. There will be no perfect implementation of electronic voting systems just like there is no perfect implementation of conventional/traditional voting systems. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not so bad as you make it seem. Wouldn't you like to have the legal right to play with your county's chosen voting system?
As for suggestion three, there is no such statutory definition for any "validating information" of any kind in a public election. That is why it was amended out of the bill. There will be a federal requirement coming into effect next year that will satisfy this requirement and we will be paying attention to the process of election validation in coming months. Stay tuned on that score.
I work for Paul Krekorian and I hope that all Californians here will call their state legislators and ask them to support AB 852, the Secure, Accurate, Fair Elections (SAFE) Act, a bill that would require disclosed source code for all election systems.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_n umber=ab_852&sess=CUR&house=B&author=krekorian
The bill is currently in Assembly Appropriations Committee and won't move until January, but it's a very important piece of legislation that we hope will reach the governors desk and receive the governor's signature.
CA legislation authored by my boss, Assemblymember Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank) will require all new voting systems to have source code disclosed on the website of the Secretary of State. Already certified machines will have to have their source disclosed by 2012.
The bill is AB 852 (the Secure, Accurate, Fair Elections [SAFE] Act of 2007) and CA residents are urged to contact their state legislators and ask for their support for the bill!
Additionally, I appreciate and agree with the sentiment that the paper record of the electronic machines should be the ballot of record (as does the assemblymember), but the goal of the bill is to allow sunlight on the democratic process and ensure the security of the voting process at all levels. Thanks slashdotters!
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working your comments into amendments before the bill is taken up in January.
I think we will definitely require compiler source per your first suggestion.
As for your second suggestion, the county will select a machine to make available to the public for inspection. The vendor will never know which machine the public will be able to inspect in any given county. Additionally, the county will be responsible, in concert with the Secretary of State, for ensuring that the certified versions of all hardware and software are in the machine and not other code. There will be no perfect implementation of electronic voting systems just like there is no perfect implementation of conventional/traditional voting systems. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not so bad as you make it seem. Wouldn't you like to have the legal right to play with your county's chosen voting system?
As for suggestion three, there is no such statutory definition for any "validating information" of any kind in a public election. That is why it was amended out of the bill. There will be a federal requirement coming into effect next year that will satisfy this requirement and we will be paying attention to the process of election validation in coming months. Stay tuned on that score.
I work for Paul Krekorian and I hope that all Californians here will call their state legislators and ask them to support AB 852, the Secure, Accurate, Fair Elections (SAFE) Act, a bill that would require disclosed source code for all election systems. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_n umber=ab_852&sess=CUR&house=B&author=krekorian
The bill is currently in Assembly Appropriations Committee and won't move until January, but it's a very important piece of legislation that we hope will reach the governors desk and receive the governor's signature.
Well, the bill is real.
But the timing is all wrong for the emergence of Skynet as far as I'm aware. Hopefully your second scenario will play out instead.
-MH
CA legislation authored by my boss, Assemblymember Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank) will require all new voting systems to have source code disclosed on the website of the Secretary of State. Already certified machines will have to have their source disclosed by 2012.
n umber=ab_852&sess=CUR&house=B&author=krekorian
The bill is AB 852 (the Secure, Accurate, Fair Elections [SAFE] Act of 2007) and CA residents are urged to contact their state legislators and ask for their support for the bill!
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_
Additionally, I appreciate and agree with the sentiment that the paper record of the electronic machines should be the ballot of record (as does the assemblymember), but the goal of the bill is to allow sunlight on the democratic process and ensure the security of the voting process at all levels. Thanks slashdotters!