Paper or no paper?
Ars Technica reports on difficulties with voting machines being used in today’s primary elections. A primary complaint is the failure of U.S. Rep Rush Holt’s proposal to fund conversion of machines to include a paper trail. It failed in the house last week. I’m not sure why a 2/3 vote was required for it, but it fell 39 votes short of that measure. Voting was on party lines.
I am not sure why integrity of voting machines is a partisan issue, can someone explain that to me?
As a counterpoint, Professor Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon calls paper trails (aka Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT) a red herring in an interview published yesterday. I tend to agree with him that paper does not prevent fraud, but my position is that a cryptographically protected electronic audit trail generated on a device whose security can be demonstrated, along with a VVPAT, provides redundancy and the separation of duties that a well secured system requires. The electronic records can be used to audit and cross check the paper records, while also providing fast results, flexible ballots, and other characteristics that have made DREs popular in recent years.