With Electronic Elections all votes and voters can be accounted for. The voter's knowledge of the vote is the crucial element in the security of the system. Only the voter possesses this knowledge. Only the voter can vouch for the data and its contribution to the result, or be able to detect the errors in the system. The voter can exercise a quality of genuine oversight which no surrogate, administrator or supplier can match. There is no credible form of result verification unless there is a means of vote verification.
Evidence matters. It is the foundation for all law. The absence of evidence has made challenging election results extraordinarily difficult. The legal system requires the plaintiffs to produce evidence to prove injury. The burden of proof falls on the individual.
In the absence of evidence the Electorate is powerless. That is why evidence is one of the Acceptance Criteria in the use of any electronic system. The burden of proof should always rest on the system to provide evidence that it is working correctly. It should be no different in the case of elections. However the popular and legal assumption is that the system works, which, in the absence of evidence, has turned the legal process on its head.
By eliminating evidence, HAVA has disenfranchised everyone.
Only Electronic Elections can make elections transparent, secure, free and fair. It is not enough to say they are free and fair. They need to be shown to be both free and fair. There is a long way to go to bring elections up to the standards required in commerce. The direction is very clear. Those responsible should take it; and "we the people" should demand it.
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