Uniform Standards for Electronic Polling Machines?

[marions ghost]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6885237/site/newsweek/

Why has it taken so long to move toward uniform standards for electronic polling machines?
By Steven Levy

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Newsweek Feb. 7 issue - The polling places in Iraq are front-and-center this week, but the jagged scars of our own election are still far from healed. Part of the problem is that, no matter what the count, many people do not trust results from electronic voting machines. Democracy suffers when there's reason to doubt that the rightful winner is the one who gets sworn into office.

So it's nice to be the first to report a development that might help things out. A renowned cryptographer with a keen interest in voting, David Chaum has persuaded a team of election officials, computer scientists, interest-group advocates and voting-equipment makers to join in a coalition called Voting Systems Performance Rating (VSPR). The goal is to generate a set of voting-system standards that everyone can agree on—sort of a Consumer Reports for election machines. There would be ratings in areas like security, privacy, reliability and accessibility to the elderly and the disabled. After the group does its work, states and counties would have a way to evaluate voting equipment before they buy. Voters could be more effective watchdogs, since VSPR's work would be public. "In voting systems, the thing you need most is transparency," says Chaum.

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Comments??? :argh:

[hedda_foil]

1. Who ARE these people and WHAT interest-groups?

And who decided they should do this? Anybody know anything?

[Andy_Stephenson]

3. David Chaum is a straight shooter.

I like him. If he is wanting to do this...I would trust him to put something together that is representative of us.

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. Here is his system.

http://www.aitechnology.com/votetrakker2/

[marions ghost]

5. The Vote-Trakker Company's goals.....

The company’s goal of ensuring our customer's success in 0% error rate elections includes the following:

Voting systems that eliminate all known voting errors.
0% residual vote.
0% unintentional under-vote.
0% fleeing voter error.
0% error electronic voting for provisional voters.
Detailed implementation training and support for the first three elections.
Local election associates for onsite support.
24/7 telephone and e-support before and after the election.
100% compliant upgrades for Federal and State election codes.
Built-in ranked and cumulative voting.
Fully integrated absentee and paper ballot with DRE touch-screen voting.
100% accessibility for voters with various types of disabilities.

[Colorado Blue]

2. So what's wrong with handcounted PAPER?

Barring that universal standards are an absolute requirement. You can't have tens of millions of people believing the election was ripped off.

Without standards we have no true democracy. Amen.

At least the good Senator Durbin agrees with this - we've got to keep writing to Congress! Maybe they'll DO SOMETHING.

[marions ghost]

6. I agree, handcounted paper

is by far the cheapest, most reliable method. If scanners are used to help count (along with hand counts while voting is in progress), that seems to me the most expedient solution to the present situation. (And of course addressing the central tabulator problem).

So I'm certainly not advocating DREs. But this article is an indicator of how the industry is seeking to maintain its position as a purveyor of new and improved systems. The industry wants to be able to set the standards for electronic voting. Which they are going to try hard to sell to legislators and elections officials.

If you read the article, this group says it is composed of
election officials
computer scientists
interest-group advocates
voting equipment makers
--goal is to develop a rating system.

What "interest group advocates?" --any we know....?
What "election officials?"
Which "computer scientists?"

I think we need to understand the nature of the opposition to hancounted paper ballots.