Re: [election-services] GAO report on election system security

["Ed Dodds" <dodds@conmergence.com>]

Has anyone looked at just using the ATMs during the elections?

 

Ed Dodds

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lowe Chris [mailto:lowe_chris@bah.com]
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 11:12 AM
To: 'David RR Webber \(XML\)', sibain@tendotzero.com
Cc: election-services@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [election-services] GAO report on election system security

Also, in banking there is repeated use, on a weekly if not daily basis (ok, so the latter may only be my wife :)), allowing users to learn and develop confidence in the technology.  Compare that to the typical pattern of (non)voting in the US, and you can understand why acceptance is lagging.  And paper receipts are not an audit trail, either. 

 

The real problem (and where the GAO report also fails) is that the focus is on efforts to reconcile the key demands of a voting system (that it be fast, cheap, secure, usable, private, trustable, transparent, auditable, reliable, and feasible) while not addressing the procedures, policies, or people involved in the voting process.  And I maintain that there is NO technical solution/magic box that can guarantee proper elections, in the face of the wide range of poor practices into which that/any box is placed in the US. 

 

-Chris