EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Jordi Puiggali
Organization : | Scytl Secure Electronic Voting
Post Date : | 9/9/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Exhibit B – Direct voter-verifiability through Independent Electronic Modules The search for voter-verifiability solutions The use of electronic voting in elections has reached a widespread use in the United States. During the November 2004 Presidential Elections, approximately one third of the voters used Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting terminals to cast their votes. These electronic voting terminals provide some real benefits to the voters, such as the prevention of unintentional voting errors (i.e., undervoting and overvoting), or the increased accessibility for people with disabilities (e.g., blind or visually impaired voters). Nonetheless, despite these advantages, DREs are generally perceived as insecure systems that do not provide any assurance with regard to the correct treatment of the votes that they record and store. Indeed, as DREs are designed today, the voter has to place blind faith in the DRE inner workings and trust that the DRE will record (and count) her vote as she really intended. Although all the voting equipment (including DREs) currently in use in the United States is independently audited and certified, the significant complexity of DREs (as a result of the many tasks that a DRE must perform) makes the auditing process difficult and, therefore does not allow to dissipate all possible doubts about their correct functioning. Given the significant presence of DREs in polling places throughout the United States, one can easily understand the nation-wide effort that is underway in the search for solutions capable of providing DREs with enhanced auditability mechanisms and the voter with means to verify the correct treatment of her vote. This vast effort has resulted in numerous legislative initiatives at federal and state levels and in a number of innovative technological solutions to provide voter-verifiability to current DRE equipment.