Disclosure of Source Code
“What is the potential risk involved or unintended consequences?”
Individual reviewers with personal agendas or insufficient knowledge of voting technology or the vagaries of election law in multiple jurisdictions may raise a red flag on a voting system without warrant and with little or no time for election officials to react prior to an election. ...
It is possible that full disclosure to any person could result in providing a potential hacker with the ability to defraud an election.
The vendors are really scared that you will see how poorly their source code is written, or that you will find the back-doors they installed.
Paper of Durable and Archival Quality
Some previous legislative proposals called for a ban on the use of thermal paper to produce a VVPAT.
...There are many myths surrounding the use of thermal paper. Thermal paper has vastly
improved and evolved from the early years when it was first developed. The facts are that the thermal paper used in voting systems can easily be maintained
in a readable form for the required retention period for federal election records.
The vendor wants to keep elections hard to recount and audit, and the reel to reel printer ensures this difficulty They hope audits will be too hard we will quit using the paper at all.
Accessible Voting Equipment
...It must be noted, however, that legislative language which requires the disabled community to verify a VVPAT record independently is currently problematic:
there are many issues of feasibility and usability that require more thought and supporting research to identify solutions to these concerns.
They worry that this language will discourage the purchase of touch-screens,encourage the purchase of optical scanners and ballot marking devices, like Automark, or IVS (phone system that marks the ballot).
Reel-to-Reel VVPAT
Proposed language requires that “The voting system shall not preserve the voter verifiable paper ballots in any manner that makes it possible, at any time after the ballot has been cast, to associate a voter with the record of the voter’s vote.” Clarification needs to be provided regarding the intent and meaning of this language. Is it designed to eliminate the use of reel-to-reel canister paper rolls? If so, this language would effectively eliminate the use of most existing electronic voting systems that produce a VVPAT. Jurisdictions have successfully administered
elections using the reel-to-reel form of VVPAT by ensuring that administrative procedures are implemented to guarantee that a voter’s ballot remains secret.
The Vendor lobby wants us to keep the defective reel to reel printers because we already have them. (And they have more they still need to un-load.)
EFFECTIVE DATE OF STATUTORY CHANGES
..Even assuming swift passage of HAVA legislation in 2007, it is too late to implement change in time for the 2008 federal elections.
Only optical scan and ballot marking devices would meet HR 811 requirements, and vendors want to sell DRE/touchscreens, because they make more money in sales and service that way.
