Reply #12: Great report - one critical flaw to be aware of...

[IndyOp]

The only "expert" Rather interviews is Mr. Michael I. Shamos, who has testified AGAINST the use of paper in elections -- here is his testimony against voting systems that require voter-verified paper ballots:

I have been a faculty member in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh since 1975. I am also an attorney admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Since 1980 I have been an examiner of electronic voting systems for various states. I am currently an examiner for Pennsylvania and have personally performed 118 voting system examinations. I will do my 119th next week.

I view electronic voting as primarily an engineering problem that includes designing processes and procedures. Once the requirements for a voting system are agreed upon, it is then a matter of developing and manufacturing equipment and processes that meet those requirements. The question is whether Congress should be setting technical performance guidelines and engineering standards, as H.R. 550 would have it do, or whether such guidelines should be left to NIST and the EAC, as HAVA has already provided.

The proposed bill is based on three major assumptions, all of which are false. First, it assumes that paper records are more secure than electronic ones, a proposition that has repeatedly been shown to be wrong throughout history. Second, it assumes that voting machines without voter-verified paper trails are unauditable because they are claimed to be "paperless," which is also false. They are neither paperless nor unauditable. Third, it assumes that paper trails actually solve the problems exhibited by DRE machines, which is likewise incorrect.

http://cha.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127&Itemid=41

Shamos is ONE LONELY expert...

Drs. Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, Dan S. Wallach "Analysis of an Electronic Voting System" -- We suggest that the best solutions are voting systems having a "voter-verifiable audit trail," where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot that can be read and verified by the voter. Here: http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html

Dr. David Dill is the founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org and is on the board of those organizations. In 2004, he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Pioneer Award" for "for spearheading and nurturing the popular movement for integrity and transparency in modern elections." The Verified Voting Resolution says: "Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. Many of the electronic voting machines being purchased do not satisfy this requirement. Voting machines should not be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems." Here: http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=5028

Dr. Eugene Spafford, Chair of the U.S. Public Policy Committee for the Association for Computing Machinery wrote to Dr. William Jeffery, Chair of the Technical Guidelines Development Committee of the National Institutes for Standards and Technology in a letter dated 12/1/06: "I commend the TDGC’s security subcommittee for its recommendation that require voting systems to be software independent as a condition for federal certification.... Utilizing software independent systems for voting machines helps to ensure not only that voting systems are more secure, but also that the election results from these systems are more reliable and trustworthy.... Clearly we must continue to make e-voting systems more secure, but given the shortfalls of security testing, it is our long-standing belief that voting systems should also enable each voter to inspect a physical (e.g., paper) record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result produced and stored by the system. We are pleased that the subcommittee’s paper clearly articulates this problem and recommends that voting systems must have an independent way of verifying a voter’s intent. Further, that paper records represent the current best practice for creating these audit trails." Here: http://tinyurl.com/32du8u

Dr. Jean Camp, co-authored the summary of "The Voting, Vote Capture, and Vote Counting Symposium" a summary of workshop on design of process, technology and their interaction in voting systems in June, 2004 at the Kennedy School of Government. The summary says: "Paper and electronic systems each have unique and potentially complementary strengths. Electronic systems can provide first counts, suitable ballots, and ease the vast logistics problems of voting. Paper provides auditable counts, ease of use, and voter confidence. Emphasis on accurate vote counting must be balanced with speed - a tally can be quick or rigorous, but not both." Here: http://designforvalues.org/voting/

Dr. Ed Felton, well known for his Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine of Princeton says, "A voter-verified paper trail is the most important safeguard that can make e-voting machines more secure."
Here: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/studies/voting
Here: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/faq.html