Re: Hand Recounts of votes recorded on DREs

[Arthur Keller <ark@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2:06 PM -0700 12/7/04, Joe Pezzillo wrote:
> Not sure about the leading "A", but VVPAT means: Voter Verified 
> Paper Audit Trail

The "A" is for accessible.

The IEEE P1583 standards committee has developed two concepts that 
may be of interest to your list.

1. Electronic Ballot Marker (EBM), a device that has a user interface 
like a DRE and marks an optical scan ballot, the kind used for hand 
marking.

2. Electronic Ballot Printer (EBP), a device that use a user 
interface like a DRE and prints a ballot, but not one used for hand 
marking.

What you suggest is a combination of EBMs and precinct-based optical 
scan tallying systems.  Such a system has great merit, but can be 
subject to ballot stuffing or loss.

EBP's with an electronic audit trail can help avoid that problem, but 
don't handle hand-marked ballots.  An example of an EBP with an 
electronic audit trail is the system described at 
http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/keller under electronic voting.

Best regards,
Arthur

--
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Arthur M. Keller,  Visiting Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.
University of California, Baskin School of Engineering, Room 153B,
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