[EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Kathy Dopp wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 10:00 PM, Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com> wrote:
> 
>>     First, this is not intended to be used in a zillion precincts - just to
>> validate the programs.
> 
> OK. Well if you don't care about validating the election outcome
> accuracy, and just want to verify the small amount of programs on
> voting machines that pertain to voting, then you could do parallel
> (Election Day) sampling of memory cards (memory cards unbelievably
> have      today interpreted code on them on most voting systems) like
> the University of CT engineering dept. has designed for checking the
> voting code on CT's voting systems.

That's bad design. The election machine shouldn't have code that can be 
simply replaced by switching memory cards. The code should be loaded at 
some time prior to the election and then locked in, and the machine 
should verify that it's the right code, perhaps by checking a digital 
signature. Anything less is, well, just bad.