Open Voting Consortium plans remedies.

http://openvotingconsortium.org/ad/ovc-nov23-pressrelease.pdf

November 23, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Election Officials still making critical mistakes: Open Voting
Consortium plans remedies.

Contact: Alan Dechert, alan@OpenVoting.org 916-791-0456

GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA - The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) will
introduce legislation state-by-state to ban paperless voting and
require that computer source code (the instructions given to
computers) used in elections be made public. OVC will also begin to
make their low-cost secure public software available for use in public
elections.

Four years after America suffered through a broken election process,
we still do not have reliable election systems to count the votes
accurately. "Paperless voting is a disaster," says Alan Dechert,
President of the Open Voting Consortium. In one case alone on November
2nd, some 4,500 votes were lost from a single electronic voting
machine in North Carolina. "Secrecy of procedures, such as failure to
post precinct totals for public viewing at the end of the Election
Day, and refusal to allow observation of ballot counting, has
generated distrust in our voting system."

In April of this year, with public acclaim, Open Voting Consortium
demonstrated a prototype of their voting system. OVC is transitioning
from an all-volunteer group of scientists and engineers to a
professional organization with a strong legislative component,
delivering voting system solutions. Secure Open Voting solutions will
also save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Despite four years and more election failures, decision-makers at all
levels neglected to fix the obvious flaws in the voting system. Long
lines and registration problems discouraged countless citizens from
voting. For the tens of millions of votes cast on paperless systems,
we have no meaningful way to audit the count.

"Our democracy has been weakened," says Dechert. "Electronic voting
will work; however, it will require proper security measures
comparable to those used in business. Voter verified paper record of
the vote, full audits of ballots and tallies, and software that is
open to scrutiny is essential. We need to begin now on a comprehensive
effort to open up, and clean up our election system so that we are not
left with unanswered questions again next time."

Computer security and reliability is a complex and ever changing area.
Election officials cannot fully test all aspects of new voting
technology. In a 60 Minutes program last month, Conny McCormack,
Registrar of Voters for Los Angeles County, said, "Voters love them,"
in reference to paperless touchscreen voting machines.
"Would they ask questions about the safety of a medical procedure of
patients or of doctors?" asked Professor Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins in
a recent Computerworld interview. "They should ask computer security
experts about computer security questions, not end users, who may like
the look and feel of the machines but have no way of knowing if they
are really secure."
Ms. McCormack dismissed the threat of vote tampering with paperless
systems. She stated that it would be too obvious for a voter to tamper
with a system in the voting booth. However, this incorrectly
characterizes the risks inherent to paperless voting systems - risks
that include simple programming errors as well as deliberate
tampering.

"With so much at stake in elections, there is a real threat of a
malicious insider rigging voting machines," says Dechert. "Slot
machines undergo more testing and scrutiny than our voting machines -
and they have been corrupted in spite of this testing: In one famous
case, an employee of the Gaming Control Board in the Electronic
Services Division in Las Vegas rigged machines without even touching
them. The cheating virus was installed by unwitting employees using an
infected testing device. The scam was only discovered years later.
Electronic ballots can be similarly altered without a trace."
The Open Voting Consortium is a Nonprofit California Corporation
dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of open voting
systems for use in public elections. OVC architecture will enable,
- An open and secure replacement of faulty election management software
- Electronic voting machine to generate a humanly readable optically
scanable ballot
- Quick initial tabulation from precincts integrated with countywide
and statewide systems
- A voter verified paper ballot that can be checked even by reading
impaired voters
- Paper ballots checked against the electronic record
- The programs, hardware and all aspects of the OVC system are
publicly available so that any system integrator can build voting
systems, and provide maintenance or training.
- Vendors to compete based on services provided rather than
proprietary hardware and software thus providing savings to taxpayers

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All information can be found on their site, not only is the software open, all details about the project are open for review by the public.