[EM] March 29 Newsweek article on verifiable voting

[Dave Ketchum]

On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 18:24:41 -0700 Jan Kok wrote:

> The March 29, 2004 issue of Newsweek magazine has an article about security
> for electronic voting.  Among the proposals mentioned are
> 
> Rebecca Mercuri's verified voting scheme, which requires that machines print
> a paper ballot with the voter's choices, that the voter can then check for
> accuracy;
> 
> David Jefferson et al's "frogs", some sort of digital storage device that
> can be used as a ballot.  (It is not clear to me from the article how that
> enhances security);
> 
> David Chaum's Votegrity scheme, which uses cryptographic methods to maintain
> ballot secrecy while also allowing voters to verify that their votes are
> counted correctly (see www.votegrity.com);
> 
> "A similar system [to Votegrity] sold by sftware vendor VoteHere" allows
> voters to verify that their votes were correctly recorded using a tracking
> code.
> 
> 
> It's great to see that voting security is getting some attention in the
> popular press!  Activists might consider sending letters to Newsweek.
> 

How about leaning on IMPORTANT topics:

How well do these schemes attend to voter secrecy?
      Without secrecy, voters can sell "voting right" to those willing to 
pay for such.
      Without assurance that secrecy is being maintained, voters can 
PROPERLY fear that, if they dare to vote "wrong", this may be known and 
result in punishment.

Voters NEED the right to inspect those boxes labeled "voting machines" to 
verify whether they properly let the voters indicate their desires and 
report proper counts at end of election.

     BTW - the right should be enough to ensure compliance by most vendors; 

average voter is unable to do such inspection but a group of voters could 

pay someone willing and able.
> Cheers,
> - Jan

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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