Feds want e-voting source code disclosed

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 8, 2004

HUNT VALLEY, Md.--Electronic voting machine vendors should make their source code available for scrutiny by state elections officials, the head of a federal voting commission said Tuesday.

DeForest Soaries, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, said disclosing the source code--the line-by-line instructions that make up an electronic voting machine's software--would help to restore public trust in the elections process. Vendors should not "have the right to keep this source code a secret," Soaries told a dinner gathering of Maryland election officials.

Soaries' suggestions, which also include standardized security checks and better record-keeping of problems, stop short of calling for paper receipts from electronic voting machines. Some advocacy groups are lobbying for "voter-verified paper ballots" that would create a physical audit trail to flag what could be a buggy computerized election machine.

"I find myself at the middle of a national debate that will quickly go global," Soaries said. "How do we secure electronic voting devices for the 28 (percent) or 29 percent of the population that will use them?"

Some 50 million Americans are expected to use e-voting machines in the November election.

It's unclear, however, what effect these recommendations will have. Soaries readily acknowledges that the commission he chairs has no authority to impose its views on state election officials, and he said he had not yet approached the other three members of the commission to seek their endorsement.

"Now is the time for computer scientists and election officials to get together and solve the problem," Soaries said.

His recommendations include:

Read More >>