[EM] Re: touch screen voting machines

[Forest Simmons]

The incident I referred to is described on page four of the October
"Lowdown."

It says, "In Canal County, Texas, three Republican candidates experienced
an astonishing coincidence when the electronic machines declared them
victors in their respective races by the exact same margin of 18,181
votes."

Hightower credits the grist for this article to Bev Harris, David Allen,
and "a supportive group of programmers, engineers, and academics" who have
put together a website at blackboxvoting.org.


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Eric Gorr wrote:

> At 1:35 PM -0800 11/12/03, Forest Simmons wrote:
> >What if you were given several receipts, and only you know which is the
> >real one.  One of the fake receipts could be used to satisfy the mafia.
>
>
> Don't think this would work.
>
> For election verification purposes, should you complain that your
> specific vote was not recorded properly, a third party would need to
> be able to verify that the receipt you gave them was valid.
>

I think the real solution is the proposal by Eron LLoyd and Dave Ketchum
of paper ballots output by the machine, and verified on the spot by the
voter, no receipt necessary. It would be at least as secure as current
vote by mail system that we have here in Oregon.

Forest