Paper records for voting?  Well.... as one who has been involved with
the sale, installation and operation of voting equipment of all
kinds.... I can't resist making a comment or two.

Despite all of the "panic" of some about the security and reliability of
electronic voting systems, the following should be noted:

(1) Yes, some of the vendor organizations are owned by individuals who
have political leanings - i.e. Diebold's owners and Hart InterCivic's
investors, but they DO NOT control the programming of the systems.  The
interests of the owners are economic - they want a return on their
investments.  I suspect that no one knows the political leanings (if
any) of the programmers.
(2) The thought that a "hacker" might alter machines remotely (over the
Internet) is not possible.  These systems are NOT connected to the
Internet, and are essentially closed systems....accessible ONLY by
authorized personnel during the course of an election.
(3) Any potential "conspiracy" to program voting equipment to alter
results would be so large and widespread as to be unsustainable.  There
are simply too many employees involved, too many regulators, etc. for a
conspiracy to work well.  Aside from that, application programs always
controlled the counting of punch card ballots and the counting of
optical scan ballots.  Mechanical gears controlled the operation of most
lever machines.
(4) The new systems sometimes vary in complexity.... and certainly the
people at your local polling station vary widely in their ability and
technical "prowess".  
(5) Seeing or having a paper copy may be possible...some electronic
systems include options that allow one to "see" the ballot, prior to it
being cast.  Jurisdictions have to determine whether they can afford the
modifications to their systems....... Whether or not that can be used to
validate the count of an electronic system, depends on whatever auditing
checks might be in place within a particular state.  The paper receipt,
however, in the hands of the voter.....would not prevent fraud, since
programs could spit out a ballot with your selections while "recording"
the vote differently - IF there was fraud involved.
(6) Voter registration fraud is much more likely and problematic than is
the potential for fraud with the voting systems.  We constantly see
instances where voter registration lists contain many "voters" who have
died or moved, or who are NOT in fact valid voters.  Fortunately, many
states are working hard to eliminate fraud in this area as well.....and
are using HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funds to build new and more
secure voter registration systems.

Whatever your leanings....go vote!  If you vote on an electronic system,
your vote is more secure today than it has ever been in the past!

Douglas P. Allen, CRM, CDIA+

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