By Declan McCullagh, 28 September 2004 10:25
NEWS The world's oldest professional society of computer scientists on Monday took aim at electronic voting machines, recommending they not be used in elections unless they provide a physical paper trail.
In a new position statement, the Association for Computing Machinery said: "Voting systems should enable each voter to inspect a physical record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result produced and stored by the system."
Accidental bugs or intentional malicious code in e-voting machines could theoretically alter an election's results.
ACM said that a paper trail will provide a way to double-check what's happening inside machines from companies such as Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting System - a feat that would not otherwise be possible.
Such systems are expected to be used by tens of millions of voters in the 2 November US election.
Declan McCullagh writes for CNET News.com
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1. Allan McBain
I'm no luddite
and fully accept that the first time someone suggested writing votes on paper rather than standing in line they were probably laughed out of the equivalent of the Electoral Commission, but one only has to look at the report on postal voting at the European/Local Government elections to realise that systems must be robust with absolutely no chance of duplication or forgery - and I don't think we're there yet.
I remember a short story, probably from Clarke or Asimov, that had the entire US Presidential election decided by a market researcher asking a single person his views on rubbish collection and the like and a suite of probability models. No campaigning, no electioneering, little cost - now that's a system I'd fully support!