NY Times: Who Tests Voting Machines?
Whenever questions are raised about the reliability of electronic voting machines, election officials have a ready response: independent testing. There is nothing to worry about, they insist, because the software has been painstakingly reviewed by independent testing authorities to make sure it is accurate and honest, and then certified by state election officials. But this process is riddled with problems, including conflicts of interest and a disturbing lack of transparency. Voters should demand reform, and they should also keep demanding, as a growing number of Americans are, a voter-verified paper record of their vote.
In the NY Times Magazine, Clive Thompson advocates an open-source e-voting solution: A Really Open Election
First off, the government should ditch the private-sector software makers. Then it should hire a crack team of programmers to write new code. Then — and this is the crucial part — it should put the source code online publicly, where anyone can critique or debug it. This honors the genius of the open-source movement. If you show something to a large enough group of critics, they’ll notice (and find a way to remove) almost any possible flaw.
Chicago Tribune: Not all voting for new technology
Armed with reports from computer scientists and news accounts of problems involving touch-screen voting, nearly two dozen area residents turned out to lobby against the new technology. The [Portage County (Ohio) Board of Elections] voted 4-0 to put off the purchase.
Miami Herald: Secretary of state tries to calm voters
Amid controversy over touch-screen voting machines and a purge of felons from the voting rolls, Secretary of State Glenda Hood sought on Thursday to reassure anxious voters that 2004 won’t be a rehash of the 2000 presidential debacle.
Howard Dean starts his syndicated column discussing e-voting: Electronic Voting – Not Ready For Prime Time
Without any accountability or transparency, even if these machines work, we cannot check whether they are in fact working reliably. The American public should not tolerate the use of paperless e-voting machines until at least the 2006 election, allowing time to prevent ongoing errors and failures with the technology. One way or another, every voter should be able to check that an accurate paper record has been made of their vote before it is recorded.
The Onion: Infograph: Electronic Voting Machines: “What are some of the machines’s potential problems?”
