Computer Science Professor Argues For a Paper Trail With E-Voting

The back cover of "Brave New Ballot," a new book on the young and controversial subject of electronic voting, promises dramatic revelations: "Aviel Rubin, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a specialist in systems security, knows something the rest of us don't. Maybe we suspected it, maybe we've thought it, but we didn't have proof. Until now."

Declaring that "democracy has never been more vulnerable," the book sells itself as something more than a summary of the bitter battle that has unfolded in recent years: computer scientists and activists who argue that electronic voting machines are vulnerable vs. machine vendors and election officials who say the systems are safe.

"Brave New Ballot," released this fall, comes as the vast majority of the American public will use electronic voting machines in next month's midterm elections -- many for the first time. And primaries this year in Maryland and other states have shown that electronic voting can cause election chaos.

The book begins with Rubin's revelatory report three years ago on the computer code that ran a popular voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems. The report, which said the machines were designed sloppily and open to tampering, propelled Rubin and the topic of electronic voting into national news.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100301310.html

What really needs to be done is give every ballot a randomly assigned number, and list the results of every single ballot on the web, so that you can see your vote was included and that it was included in the totals. If I get a paper receipt, and that's it, it just means my vote was printed, not counted.

Unless I have some way to independently verify that my ballot was correct AND that it was included in the results, a paper trail is meaningless. How many people would actually keep their voting receipt and bring it back in if there were a recount? I'd feel much better if I could log on from any computer, find my precinct, see a listing of all votes in my precinct by ballot ID number, and check to make sure my ballot matches my receipt.

You could program the machine to print and display the voter's intended vote while recording something else entirely and it's the recorded vote that's going to matter. Recounts don't happen that often and you're right, a lot of people will lose their receipts. What happens then?

The idea is not for you to walk away with your ballot, to be produced at a later date/time as necessary. The idea is to create a complete paper trail that can be used for an audit, or to reproduce the voting if a machine "malfunctions."

This was actually called for in the Help America Vote Act of 2002:
http://www.fec.gov/hava/law_ext.txt

Audit capacity.--
    (A) In general.--The voting system shall produce a 
record with an audit capacity for such system.
    (B) Manual audit capacity.--
          (i) The voting system shall produce a 
      permanent paper record with a manual audit 
      capacity for such system.
          (ii) The voting system shall provide the voter 
      with an opportunity to change the ballot or 
      correct any error before the permanent paper 
      record is produced.
          (iii) The paper record produced under 
      subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official 
      record for any recount conducted with respect to 
      any election in which the system is used.