Reply #17: I'm sorry - I fail to understand the logic of this stmt [View All]

Are you saying that BECAUSE it is public domain software on the
BBV machines, it can't possibly be hacked? And if hacked, it can
be discovered without a paper trail? I think you are simply wrong.

What I advocated in my post was a computer assisted ballot creation.
You can use anyones software, proprietary or public (I personally think
it should be on the web, downloadable to your PC). One uses this
software and a computer to navigate the choices one would like to vote
for (ranked voting anyone?), etc. After the selections are made,
whether at home or at the polling place, a PAPER ballot containing
your specific choices is created. NO recording or counting is
required at this step. No encoding is done either... the selections
are in plain text, possibly in two languages (English and your native
language). You the voter reviews the ballot for correctness and turns
it in.

At this point one COULD use machines to optically scan and count
the votes... and if one does, I would recommend that it be done
at the polling location, and done twice by two different machines
using software derived from two completely different sources. The
results are then compared (they should be identical) and the result
posted on a web page for everyone to view (as well as sent to the
proper authorities for inclusion in regional, state and national
totals). However, I would be just as happy to have the vote count
take a bit longer and have multiple sets of HUMANS count the vote
at each polling location (people from all interested parties plus
international observers). After counting by whatever method, the
ballots are collected, DUPLICATED (using standard XEROX technology)
and both copies locked up and stored for some number of months or
years. Sort of like checks at banks.

Only human readable paper (or other media) trail is acceptable for
something like this. If it requires a machine to count it, it
can be corrupted. I don't care whose software you use.

There are plenty of reasons to use public domain software for many
applications. This just isn't one of them. We are only talking
about 100 to 120 million or so ballots. Maybe only a few thousand
per polling place. This doesn't (and never did) require computers,
though I see where computers can be used to PREPARE the ballots and
assist people in making their selections.