[Tfug] OK, got a different tech challenge on FOSS voting...

[John Mc]

Open Source Voting Software Success
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Jan 14, 2008 06:44 PM
from the finally-a-voting-story-to-feel-good-about dept.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/14/2140227&from=rss

Punchscan Wins Open Source Voting Competition
Posted by kdawson on Tue Jul 24, 2007 03:41 PM
from the at-least-they're-foss-hanging-chads dept.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/24/1823211&from=rss

Slashdot search for "open source voting"
http://www.google.com/search?query=open+source+voting&as_sitesearch=politics.slashdot.org

and this is a really good article ...even from 5 years ago.
Proprietary voting computers: Threat or menace?
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller http://roblimo.com
July 29, 2003 (8:00:00 AM)
http://www.linux.com/feature/30571

You aren't reinventing the wheel, are you?
+++

Ok, to understand better what we're dealing with, here's my comments today to the project manager regarding this LiveCD boot disk/voting machine "kiosk" software.  I'd like to keep this purely on TFug for now, OK?

Background for TFUG: the way this thing works is, it prints a paper ballot containing both plain-English vote choices plus a barcode showing which voting machine it came from.  It also stores an electronic copy of each ballot image based on the voter's choices.  In this fashion it's both a "ballot marking device" producing a paper record, and an "electronic voting machine".  IF done right, this is actually cool: the electronic and paper records act as a check against each other.  If they disagree, you KNOW something bad happened.  A hacker therefore has to break both...unless of course they can rig the output in the first place.  But the voter gets to actually hold and look at the paper before putting it in a standard ballot box, so that seems at least risky.
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The good news:
1) The user interface for the voter is surprisingly good.
2) The basic concepts are sound.
3) Using a re-mixed Ubuntu LiveCD is a good idea.

File under "needs work":