Move to decertify touchscreen electronic voting machines gathers momentum

[mandy]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a report recommending that the federal Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines for 2007 (VVSG 2007) be revised to decertify touchscreen electronic voting machines, also called direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines. In a nutshell, the report argues that because DREs cannot be properly audited absent a voter-verifiable paper trail (VVPAT), they shouldn't be certified for use in elections. Says the report:

    One conclusion drawn by NIST is that the lack of an independent audit capability in DRE voting systems is one of the main reasons behind continued questions about voting system security and diminished public confidence in elections. NIST does not know how to write testable requirements to make DREs secure, and NIST's recommendation to the STS is that the DRE in practical terms cannot be made secure...

full article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061201-8338.html

[BellisimaJ.]

Bolding is mine.

Contrary to what has been widely reported, the NIST report does not recommend "scrapping" existing DRE machines. Indeed, it explicitly leaves the "policy" question of what should be done with existing DREs to other parties, and it suggests a provision in the VVSG 2007 for "grandfathering" in the current generation of DREs that do not meet the newer guidelines. The decertification aspect of the report has implications only for machines purchased after the guidelines go into effect sometime in 2009 or 2010. So DREs purchased by states and counties after the deadline for implementing the guidelines will not be certified, but existing machines will be grandfathered in.

:blinkie:

So I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Cuyahoga County is one of the growing roster of counties that are openly considering junking their touchscreens and putting in a whole new system for 2008. Cuyahoga had big problems with the machines in the May primaries, so they sunk a fresh $14 million into various measures (mostly poll worker training and backup ballots) designed to ensure that the November mid-terms would go more smoothly. Even with all that extra money, Cuyahoga still had plenty of problems on election day.

The county has decided that they can't afford to shell out $14 million each time there's a major election, just so that their fragile and unauditable DREs can present the public with the semblance of election integrity. It may actually be cheaper, they figure, to just start over.

Now if the rest of the country would only follow the lead of Cuyahoga and Sarasota County, OH.

Should be required of all states to junk those machines.