E-ballot software wins vote of confidence

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KISS

Print it on paper roll, visible behind a window to the voter, they accept the vote, the roll winds on so the vote isn't visible (or a shutter closes). Paper rolls are secured like ballot papers would be.

Why make it so complicated with encryptions and complicated websites?

Also, what happened here, its quite incredible that Sequoia employee have access to the voting machines during a vote:

http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1013&IssueNum=55

"With 46 of the county?s 157 precincts counted, Buster was running at about 47 per cent ? three points below the 50 percent plus one he needed to win outright ? with Soubirous at 37 percent and a third candidate, Kevin Pape, at 15. But then some very strange things started to happen.

"The expectation was that the rest of the results would come in very quickly. Speed, after all, was one of the big attractions of Riverside?s pioneering touchscreen computer voting system ? with its instant precinct-by-precinct vote tallies and ostensibly easy-to-operate system for centralized results tabulation. But the anticipated rapid-fire updates simply failed to materialize. After the initial results posting at 8:13 p.m., there followed a long period of silence.

"At around 8:50, Soubirous?s campaign manager, Brian Floyd, received a call from an election observer in Temecula informing him that the vote count had been stopped ? apparently by Registrar Mischelle Townsend herself. The reason was not made clear. So Floyd and another Soubirous campaigner named Art Cassel jumped into a car and drove to Townsend?s office to investigate. Sure enough, the counting area appeared to be near-deserted. But then they noticed two men huddled at one of the vote tabulation computers.

"One, according to their account, was typing away on the computer keyboard, while the other was standing just next to him.

"The two men turned out to be employees of Sequoia Voting Systems, the private company which manufactures Riverside County?s AVC Edge touchscreen machinery. Their presence was unusual, to say the least, and even the possibility that they might be making changes to the vote tabulation software in the middle of an election was alarming to Cassel and Floyd. Sequoia insists the two men?s activities were entirely benign ? merely generating lists of data to send to the Secretary of State?s office in Sacramento that had nothing to do with the tabulation software.

"Soubirous?s campaign staff has made no direct accusations, although it has strongly criticized the registrar?s office for allowing at least an appearance of impropriety at a time when the sanctity of the electoral process should have been paramount.

"Cassel and Floyd said the man at the keyboard, a Sequoia vice president called Mike Frontera, was wearing a county employees? ID badge ? something that has not been adequately explained by anyone. ?What they were doing there we?ll never know,? Cassel said.

Posted by: Nigel Johnstone   Posted on: 07/20/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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