Re: commissioners presentation this thurs

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Dec 01, 2003 at 03:02:16PM -0700, Neal McBurnett wrote:
> ...we don't have to buy DRE's until 2006, based on the extension
> that the secy of state will get (in all likelihood).
> 
> Ideally we would, in 2006, get
> precinct scanners that would have fully-disclosed software.  And they
> could scan DRE-generated paper ballots and read them back so even
> blind voters could verify them.

Al gently pointed out to me that "DRE-generated paper ballots" is a
misuse of terms, since "DRE" is generally understood to imply that the
vote is Directly Recorded Electronically right then and there.

I'll go with his terminology.  In 2006 we want hand-marked paper
ballots for most people and "Vote Marking" machines -- such as the
Vogue Elections system -- to make the polling places accessible to
all.  We never want to see a traditional DRE in Boulder County since
it does not generate voter verifiable paper ballots that could
actually be used in a normal recount.

In order to have some protection against flawed, hacked or fraudulent
software, I also think that Boulder County should institute, as a
standard part of its vote counting procedure, some sort of
confirmation hand-count of randomly selected ballots.  Perhaps via
random selection of a suitable number of stacks of ballots.  Linda
Salas seemed to think this would be workable in the meeting we had
with her a few weeks ago.

But that is no substitute for fully disclosed software, which would
better protect against fraud and lead to improved software quality,
reliability and security.

-Neal