Re:It's only fully open if... (Score 1)

The compiler can take the good friendly Open Source, compile like normal (for the most part,) but then inject some nastiness wherever it was programmed to.

No one is claiming the open source solves everything. It's a necessarly feature of a transparent voting system. There are many other rules, procedures, etc. necessary to make it all work correctly.

What I recommend: Humans performing pencil & paper counting under scrutiny of video camera and representatives of competing parties. Distribute the video tapes of the counting process on the Internet, and maintain archives for at least 12 years.

Sounds like a security nightmare to me.

1. Are you going to prepare the ballots without computers too? That's where many problems occur.
2. Sure we need representatives of competing parties. Still, consider that Democrats in the South are really Republicans.
3. The fact that they hand count in other countries is irrelevant. Typically, they are voting for one thing (Member of Parliament, for example). We've analyzed ballots with 44 contests and even 76 contests. Here's one in Santa Monica CA that had 44 contests and 95 candidates: http://www.smartvoter.org/uvote4/uvote4.cgi?addr=1 719++WILSHIRE+BL&date=2002/11/05&zip=90403
4. Consider a presidential year general election. 200,000 pollsites and an average of 500 ballots per pollsite. How many millions of counters will you need? How many millions of scrutineers of counters will you need? How many millions of cameras? How many people are needed to coordinate, train, supervise the whole process? How much will all that cost?
5. Computers are great at counting and following rules. Your proposal (which, fortunately, has zero chance of adoption here in the U.S.) has one major flaw: you want to use people for exactly what they're really bad at doing: counting and following rules.