The Machineries of Democracy: Failed Trust, Elections in Courts

As you might imagine, it is hard to choose from the many events of Election Day 2008 to report and reflect on! But I thought that I’d pick a handful of events that show just how vitally important it is the election equipment be designed carefully – and the consequences of products that aren’t, and vendors that don’t seem to care. I have to say, it’s potentially dire, which is why I’ve picked as many as 3 events to support my claims.

Test results on New Jersey e-voting machines will be released

Good news from New Jersey! A judge there has reversed her earlier decision that test results on Sequoia voting machines could not be made public -- a story that we discussed a few months ago here. The new ruling means that conmputer experts at Princeton University will be able to analyze the machines starting next week, and publish their results in late September before the November election.

PRI beats the e-voting dis-trust drum

Today's "The World" broadcast of Public Radio International had a couple of nifty quotes I wanted to share:

"The paper trail is not helpful if the software is not doing what what it should."

"For any electronic voting system to be successful, the voters have to trust the voting machines. In the U.S., that trust simply does not exist."