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Two New National Reports on DRE's |
In the past weeks two national reports were released about the
security issues in new voting technology. One report released by
Common Cause, details the holes in the current DRE system. This report
rated Maryland’s elections as high risk. You can read a summery of the
report and the full report at the following web link http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1808817&auid=1781088.
The Common Cause report gave recommendations as to what voters and
officials can do in states like Maryland where we don’t have
voter-verified paper trails on our voting machines including:
1. States should pass laws or adopt regulations requiring all voting
systems to produce a voter verifiable paper ballot and mandate
that at least a random two percent of voting jurisdictions conduct
public audits of their voting systems.
2. Election officials should take necessary steps to safeguard machines
prior to Election Day.
3. State election officials should, wherever possible, immediately retrofit
DREs with printing systems to produce a voter verifiable paper
ballot, and use those ballots in audits.
4. In the instance where DREs cannot be retrofitted, Common Cause
recommends that state election officials decertify those DREs that
cannot provide a paper record and turn to other voting systems
such as optical scan machines for the November elections.
5. Congress and states should make emergency funds available for
purchase or lease of more secure, auditable machines.
6. Voters should be encouraged to vote on paper whenever possible.
If facing the prospect of voting on paperless DREs in November,
they should advocate for change with local election officials
well before the election. If that does not work, where possible,
voters should vote by absentee ballot.
The last report is a one year long study by the Brennan Center
analyzing the security around modern voting machines, both those with
and with out a paper trail. This report can be found at the
following link:
http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/Full%20Report.pdf
The Brennan Center made the following recommendations:
1. Conduct Automatic Routine Audits comparing voter-verified paper records
To the electronic record following every election.
2. Perform “Parallel Testing” (selection of voting machines at random
and testing them as realistically as possible) on Election Day. The
Task Force does not recommend Parallel Testing as a substitute for the
use of voter verified paper records with an Automatic Routine Audit.
3. Ban use of voting machines with wireless components.
4. Use a transparent and random selection process for all auditing procedures.
5. Ensure decentralized Programming and Voting System administration.
6. Institute clear and effective procedures for addressing evidence of fraud or error.
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