On Nov 7 Neal McBurnett wrote: "Here is a statement from the Co-Chairs of USACM, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery, a premier organization in the computing industry." Hmmm, now there's a group that should have a technical opinion on computer voting worth considering. Their statement included the criteria: "...it is crucial that any computerized voting system provide a voter-verifiable audit trail: there should be an anonymous record of each vote that can be can be checked for accuracy by the voter when the vote is cast, and is difficult or impossible to alter after the vote is cast." Neal uses (when necessary) encrypted email, as shown in his signature: "Neal McBurnett http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/ Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged. GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60" This indicates the use of what is known as public/private key encryption, a system used world-wide not only for making email sealed, secure and uniquely signed (not simply a public post card, as is all unencrypted email), but also for the vast majority of proprietary and financial networked transactions. This system was pioneered for desktops by Phil Zimmerman right here in Boulder in the '90s using the patented (now public domain) RSA system developed at MIT for mainframes. This software is open and highly verified by experts all over the world and has never been broken in any significant way - which is why it has been so widely accepted by the most paranoid transacters. It probably can only be broken by the massive and highly uneconomical use of supercomputers available only to the likes of the NSA/CIA/DIA. To my knowledge there is NO OTHER type of digital security system capable of meeting the USACM criteria for a "voter-verifiable audit trail": anonymous - ONLY the voter could decipher the digital signature associated with a ballot accurate - before the ballot would be encrypted, ONLY the voter can verify it difficult or impossible to alter - this is a phrase applicable ONLY to public/private key encryption To me it's a "no-brainer" if there ever was one: Whatever interim voter system Boulder County uses should NOT be an unencrypted computer system. Lou Puls lpuls@xxxxxxxxxxxxx