Submission + - Election reform, open source style!
sea-cat writes: "Given the news stories of glitches and switched votes in West Virginia's and Tennessee's early electronic voting, as well as the many other problems cited with electronic voting, and inspired by the 10/22/2008 round-table discussion on Off The Hook of what is the best method for voting, I submit the following proposal of what I think would be the best set of methods and technologies for holding elections. It is my hope that people who are smarter than me will be able to add to — or modify — these ideas so that when they are put forward as a state ballot initiative there will be plenty of critical analysis by qualified professionals to show that this will not only work but that it's secure, efficient, and as fool-proof as anything that involves human beings can be.
To that end, I propose that for future elections in any jurisdiction which adopts this plan:
To that end, I propose that for future elections in any jurisdiction which adopts this plan:
- Ballots shall be optical scan ballots.
- Physical ballots shall be retained for no less than three years.
- All specifications of the document format from which the physical ballots are printed, as well as the full technical specifications — including parts lists and electronic schematics — of ballot scanning machines, as well as any drivers and software used by ballot scanning machines to generate electronic ballot scans, as well as the image format of the image file of the scanned ballots, as well as the software used for counting votes based on the scanned ballot images, shall be open source and published at least one year prior to use in a general election, or 90 days prior to a primary election in order that proper scrutiny may be given to the software and hardware systems to be used in an election.
- Images files of the optical scans of the ballots shall be made publicly available — preferably online — as soon as possible after the election, and that election results cannot be certified as official until thirty days have elapsed from the time when election officials certify that all ballots have been published for review and recount.
- Anyone who desires to perform a recount of the election may do so during aforementioned the thirty day period. Such recounts may be "manual" or electronic. Any custom software or intellectual property used in conducting a recount must be made available to election officials, without license fees, in the event that the preliminary election results generated by election officials are being contested on the basis of using said custom software or intellectual property in conducting the private recount. Any copyright or legal encumbrances which prevent election officials from reproducing a recount shall render invalid a request to certify vote counts based on the proposed recount in question.
- Trust in the integrity of the voting processing being of the utmost importance, anyone who intentionally tampers with the process of counting votes, or destroys or misplaces physical ballots, or causes electronic scans of ballots to not be counted, or in any way causes a discrepancy between the number or content of the physical ballots and the published electronic scans of ballots shall be sentenced a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Any governor commuting or pardoning a person so sentenced shall be immediately subject to a recall election, and a governor may not commute or pardon a person so convicted if there is less than two years remaining in their term in office.
- A technology review committee shall be convened every fourth year to review the effectiveness of the voting system, and propose any changes that might be needed to the elections systems or process.
What feedback can the slashdot community give to improve this idea?"
