Federal Panel [not NIST] Rejects Paper Trail For E-Voting 191
emil10001 writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has rejected a proposal suggesting that electronic voting have a paper trail. The draft recommendation was developed by NIST scientists, who called out electronic voting machines as being 'impossible' to secure." From the article: "Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.' The proposal failed to obtain the 8 of 15 votes needed to pass. Five states — Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina — use machines without a paper record exclusively. Eleven states and the District either use them in some jurisdictions or allow voters to chose whether to use them or some other voting system." So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.
Things have changed in two days (Score:5, Informative)
Story is out of date! (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.com.com/Panel+changes+course%2C+appro
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1095 [freedom-to-tinker.com]
Re:Things have changed in two days (Score:2, Informative)
Parent is insightful (or at least funny). (Score:3, Informative)
This is one of those situations where knee-jerk moderating doesn't quite work.
Re:It shouldn't only be about cost. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Things have changed in two days (Score:2, Informative)
The committee essentially reversed itself the next day. The second proposal was worded differently, making it clear that only future e-voting machines would be required to have independent audit mechanisms. The second version also addressed some concerns about accessibility of disabled people to the paper trail mechanisms.
So, in short, the story posted on slashdot is old and no longer valid.
Grant