I Demand a Reciept for My Electronic Vote!

[wolfwings]

Now... many will misunderstand what I mean by posting to this image, and what the shorthand form of the request meant.

This isn't a lashing-out at Diebold, or any of the other, numerous, electronic-voting systems.

This isn't a request that my vote suddenly be trackable.

This is a demand that, if I place a vote with an electronic voting machine, I recieve a reciept that has a single fact it can prove:
What the votes cast for it are.

I don't need to be able to prove who cast the votes on the reciept (though what machine they were cast at could be useful to prevent double-voting attacks), only that the votes on the reciept are valid votes, and what those votes were, both in cleartext and in some form of durable, secure, provable fashion. The latter would likely involve encrypted data using public-key information, to prove that the reciept is valid as a side-effect.

Comments

[arian-maral.livejournal.com]

I have to agree, something needs to be done before we get more 'statistical flukes' such as Georgia had (where a governor and state senator leading by 10 points in a poll that has been known for its successful predictions of previous elections, suddenly lose by 5 points or so). No paper trail of course...so it COULD have been a sudden change by the voters from the previous nights polling...but it could have also been a hardware malfunction, software error, hackers or corporate tampering. With no audit trail, we will not know for sure.

My county in Florida is refusing to go to touch screen machines due to no paper trail. We vote by darkening circles (just like the old tests in high school) and putting the ballot through a reader. In the event of a contested election they have both the original ballots AND the internal printed tape the machine makes. Malfunctioning machines can be easily identified by comparing the two and the election results hand-certified if need be.

Personally, I trust nothing that can ONLY be verified by the manufacturer (most touch-screen manufacturers classify the software as trade secrets and only THEY can access it). Legally, its the Registrar and election commissions that are responsible for recounts, not , so I fail to see how we can even legally USE a machine without a paper trail (and only a manufacturer's 'trust us'). Machines do malfunction, online hackers do get in...and in our current political climate of lies I'd not put tampering below anyone, an audit trail is a MUST.

You have to ask yourself. 'If an audit trail is harmless (as some have said), then why do they fight so hard AGAINST the idea of vote accountability?'.