[clug] eVACS lives!

[Steve Jenkin]

Saw this on the ACM Technews list and thought that some of the
contributors may still read the CLUG list.
Love the way that 'Software Improvements' are

http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item1 [copied at
end]

This summary points to the base article.  I'm sure there's many more.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61968,00.html

Canberra consistently 'punches above it weight' in IT, especially in
Open Source.

Something I wasn't aware of [is this claim true?] - that the AEC was
offered but did not want a 'VVPAT' - Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail.
[A printer in _every_ polling booth - many $$$$]

cheers
sj

======================================

"Open-Source E-Voting Heads West"
Wired News (01/21/04); Zetter, Kim 

Open-source software developed in Australia is the basis for a new
electronic voting system to be devised by Scott Ritchie at the
University of California at Davis. 

The 19-year-old college student announced the launch of the nonprofit
Open Vote Foundation before the California secretary of state's Voting
Systems Panel on Jan. 15; the foundation's mission will be to modify the
Electronic Voting and Counting System (eVACS) from Australia's Software
Improvements to meet California election standards and make the software
freely available to any voting vendors, including those outside of
California.

The eVACS source code was released online under a general public
license, and the system was employed in a 2001 election in the
Australian Capital Territory. The Australian system does not use
proprietary, secret software developed by private companies, but was
produced in collaboration with an independent government entity that
issued draft and final versions of the source code online for public
review. 

All e-voting machines in California must include a voter-verified paper
trail by July 2006 in accordance with the California Secretary of
State's mandate, and Ritchie intends to include such a feature in the
eVACS modification. 

The college student insists that the cost of building eVACS-based voting
machines will be much cheaper than e-voting systems created by private
companies, since the basic materials are inexpensive and the programmers
working on the system are volunteers. 

Software Improvements engineer Matt Quinn welcomes the project, arguing
that there is plenty of room in the e-voting machine market for several
open-source products as well as proprietary offerings. 

However, Rebecca Mercuri of Harvard University warns that open-source
cannot solve fundamental e-voting security problems by itself, and calls
the printed audit trail an essential backup component. 
Click Here to View Full Article

To learn more about ACM's activities regarding e-voting; visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/EVoting.htm. 



-- 
Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA