A proposed specification for electronic voting machines

README.md

Fixing Electonic Voting

Problems

1. Each electronic vote is tallied on a machine made by a single vendor.
2. Each electronic vote has no paper-trail associated with it.
3. Transmission of electronic votes between precincts is highly vulnerable to tampering

Solution

The solution is two fold, but very simple in nature. It is composed of two machines:

• PRINTER: A machine which will provide data entry for the citizens vote, and PRINT A RECEIPT.
• READER: A machine (and lock box) which will be capable of reading the receipted made by PRINTER. Upon receiving the RECEIPT the citizen will then insert it into the READER where upon entry into the box it will be scanned electronically and also stored in paper form.

The thing about this solution is that it is so simple in it's audit trail generation:

• Audit Trail 1: Number of Votes on the PRINTER
• Audit Trail 2: Number of Votes on the READER (electronically)
• Audit Trail 3: Number of Votes on the READER (physically)

It is also reminiscent of how people used to vote in a simpler time. Votes were put into ballot boxes and later counted.

It also solves the single vendor problem because these machines need to be regulated in such a way that: "no company that produces a PRINTER machine shall be allowed to produce a READER machine (and vice versa)." It necessitates an open standard which various manufacturers and vendors must participate and prevent what I currently view as flawed and inferior work product in the voting machine market.

Why do we need to go to a polling location with such machines? Voting can be done securely in a distributed fashion entirely over the internet. Washington and Oregon got rid of polling locations entirely in favor of voting by physical mail, which is better but not quite there.

Polling places should be optional and can probably be scaled back once states adopt voting over the internet. It's nice to see New Jersey adopt using email for voting in wake of the Sandy disaster in the region (despite the obvious potential security issues of email voting), and I hope they continue to offer voting via the internet even when physical infrastructure is restored.

Companies like PES* are also not helping anything. Charlie's idea for fixing electronic voting is awesome, but how do we get the government or PES to adopt solutions like this? What happens in a week when election talk dies down and nobody seems to care about this issue for another 4 years?

*PES may still have a de-facto monopoly on voting machines.