Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Memo to DesNews: Paper Ballots are not Ludite

Last Thursday's editorial in the Deseret News painted me, and people like me, who want voter verifiable paper audit trails as being afraid of technology. That's funny because I love technology and have made it a major part of my career.

Back in '04, many Computer Science professors at the U and BYU got together to ensure that our legislature understood the difficulties of getting electronic voting right. I was one of those professors and still believe that a voter-verifiable paper audit trail is important in establishing the legitimacy of an electronic election. Not because of public perception, but because it's just too easy to get electronic voting wrong.

Phil's post, Phil Windley's Technometria | Saying Yes to Paper Ballots, reminded me that I needed to say something about this.

1 comment:

bindiec said...

Crazy isn't it? We expect a reciept for credit card purchases, but hey, no need to verify who I just voted for. Nuts.