E-ballot software wins vote of confidence

Ballot-machine maker Advanced Voting Solutions will use VoteHere's software to offer voters a way to check that their ballot was cast correctly, VoteHere said Monday.

The companies will team to integrate the technology into AVS's WINvote touch-screen voting terminal and will test the device during the November election. Rather than allow for a centralized re-count, the system gives voters the ability to check their vote online by matching a coded number on a receipt with the same number in a database.

"Voters can get receipts to ensure their votes were properly counted, and anyone can audit the election results," Jim Adler, founder of VoteHere, said in a statement.

VoteHere's technology is its answer to the demand of some security-conscious citizens for a secondary paper trail to help ensure the integrity of an election.

With older voting systems, such as the punch-card setups that became notorious after the 2000 presidential election, poll workers typically audit a small number of voting machines and can re-count the ballots by hand to check the integrity of the vote. With the latest touch-screen voting systems, also known as Direct Recording Electronic, or DRE, machines, a manual re-count is not possible, because there are no ballots.

Although voting machine manufacturers have maintained that their e-voting systems are secure, critics have called for a transparent method of checking the integrity of the vote. The most well-known method, which prints the voter's choices on a piece of paper behind a clear plastic partition, has been dubbed a voter verified paper audit trail, or VVPAT.

VoteHere's method instead uses encryption to scramble the voter's choices to unrecognizable codes. Voters can check the codes with the selected candidates on the voting terminal screen and also take a receipt with them that lists their scrambled choices. Once home, voters can check the ballot online, matching up the coded names. VoteHere argues that if one in a thousand people checks his or her votes online, the election integrity can be assured with a very small margin of error.

Advanced Voting Solutions is the second public-election company to sign with VoteHere. Sequoia Voting Systems agreed to use the Bellevue, Wash., company's technology last year. VoteHere has also partnered with companies focused on creating systems for shareholder voting and other private sector uses.

[BlueInWI]

Steps in the right direction...

I like this approach but still prefer a printed copy of the voter's choices that need to be visually approved by the voter before leaving the booth. These printed copies can then be used in a recount and for an audit/check of the electronic results. All electronic (with no paper trail) systems could be tampered with such that they report one set of votes to the person entering the code to check their votes, and another to the the tabulation routine.

[nealda]

Bad Idea number 2,345,961

Voter verification and voting receipts are two very different things. A paper verification allows the voter to check their vote and also records it for later manual recount. This is good as long as the voter leaves the paper at the polling site.

Receipts are bad (paper or electronic) due to the following two scenarios:

1) Campaign thug: Hey! Yous better vote the way I told you if you don't want a little lead behind the ear! Show me the receipt if you want to live to see the election results.

2) Campaign "entrepreneur": Hey, great! You voted for candidate X! Just show me the receipt and you'll get your $50!

Voting machines should just print the paper and voters should just check it and stick it in a ballot box. What's so difficult about this? Why does everyone want to make is so complicated? Because they want to make a buck off the election process, that's why. Elections should be a non-profit affair.

[Not Bugged]

voter secrecy

There are two principles of voter secrecy. One is that no one knows for whom you voted. The other is that you cannot prove your vote. In this case, the second pronciple is violated.

Those who need to know, know the above mentioned. The problem is that, this year, the trend is the trade of between total secrecy and total verifiability.

[nealda]

Bad Idea number 2,345,961

Voter verification and voting receipts are two very different things. A paper verification allows the voter to check their vote and also records it for later manual recount. This is good as long as the voter leaves the paper at the polling site.

Receipts are bad (paper or electronic) due to the following two scenarios:

1) Campaign thug: Hey! Yous better vote the way I told you if you don't want a little lead behind the ear! Show me the receipt if you want to live to see the election results.

2) Campaign "entrepreneur": Hey, great! You voted for candidate X! Just show me the receipt and you'll get your $50!

Voting machines should just print the paper and voters should just check it and stick it in a ballot box. What's so difficult about this? Why does everyone want to make is so complicated? Because they want to make a buck off the election process, that's why. Elections should be a non-profit affair.

[Not Bugged]

voter secrecy

There are two principles of voter secrecy. One is that no one knows for whom you voted. The other is that you cannot prove your vote. In this case, the second pronciple is violated.

Those who need to know, know the above mentioned. The problem is that, this year, the trend is the trade of between total secrecy and total verifiability.

Bad Idea Number ONE

The whole concept violates the principle of a secret ballot. The originator should be tried for treason!

Why is it Americans are so ready to give away their basic freedoms?

Bad Idea Number ONE

The whole concept violates the principle of a secret ballot. The originator should be tried for treason!

Why is it Americans are so ready to give away their basic freedoms?

[BlueInWI]

Steps in the right direction...

I like this approach but still prefer a printed copy of the voter's choices that need to be visually approved by the voter before leaving the booth. These printed copies can then be used in a recount and for an audit/check of the electronic results. All electronic (with no paper trail) systems could be tampered with such that they report one set of votes to the person entering the code to check their votes, and another to the the tabulation routine.