The Gray Lady Weighs In
On December 6, I put up a post suggesting that it was time for demanding a paper trail for electronic voting machines throughout the country. Today, the NY Times said essentially the same thing in one of its editorials:
Two influential federal advisory groups have added their voices to an emerging national consensus that voting machines must produce a voter-verified paper record if they are to be trusted. One of those groups, the one dominated not by scientists but by election officials, was more grudging than it should have been. But their analyses should give further support to members of Congress who plan to push next month for a strong federal law requiring voter-verified paper records.
...The National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency that promotes good standards in everything from medical devices to smoke detectors, recently concluded that paperless electronic voting is unacceptable. The agency’s scientists said that for electronic voting to be trustworthy, it must be “software independent,” meaning there has to be a means apart from the machines’ own software to prove that the vote tallies are correct.
The obvious way to do this is a voter-verified paper record. The institute allowed that there could be other ways, like a video or audio record of votes cast, but those technologies remain unproven.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plan to introduce legislation to require voter-verified paper records. That legislation has a good chance of passing. If any members of Congress are uncertain why such a law is needed, the NIST report makes the case convincingly. [Emphasis added]
Exactly so.
It's not only important to stop the fiascos we've seen in Florida, Ohio, Maryland, and other sites, it's also a way to convince citizens that their votes are important and secure. Surely the integrity of the voting system is important enough to find the funds to assist those states which invested in machines without that back-up to purchase machines with it.
It wouldn't hurt to let your senator and your congress critter know that you expect such legislation as that about to be introduced by Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Hold to be passed. Start now, and follow up as the bills wend their way through committees.
Two influential federal advisory groups have added their voices to an emerging national consensus that voting machines must produce a voter-verified paper record if they are to be trusted. One of those groups, the one dominated not by scientists but by election officials, was more grudging than it should have been. But their analyses should give further support to members of Congress who plan to push next month for a strong federal law requiring voter-verified paper records.
...The National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency that promotes good standards in everything from medical devices to smoke detectors, recently concluded that paperless electronic voting is unacceptable. The agency’s scientists said that for electronic voting to be trustworthy, it must be “software independent,” meaning there has to be a means apart from the machines’ own software to prove that the vote tallies are correct.
The obvious way to do this is a voter-verified paper record. The institute allowed that there could be other ways, like a video or audio record of votes cast, but those technologies remain unproven.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plan to introduce legislation to require voter-verified paper records. That legislation has a good chance of passing. If any members of Congress are uncertain why such a law is needed, the NIST report makes the case convincingly. [Emphasis added]
Exactly so.
It's not only important to stop the fiascos we've seen in Florida, Ohio, Maryland, and other sites, it's also a way to convince citizens that their votes are important and secure. Surely the integrity of the voting system is important enough to find the funds to assist those states which invested in machines without that back-up to purchase machines with it.
It wouldn't hurt to let your senator and your congress critter know that you expect such legislation as that about to be introduced by Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Hold to be passed. Start now, and follow up as the bills wend their way through committees.
Labels: Voting Machines
posted by Diane at 4:00 AM
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