CPSR Comments on the California Touch Screen Task Force Report (excerpt)

This excerpt is particularly significant to the situation in Maryland. You can view the full report at:
http://www.cpsr.org/issues/vote-catouchscreen.html

The Report goes into considerable detail discussing the means by which voters using a DRE might verify that their votes will be correctly counted.

CPSR notes that it is critical that voters have confidence that their votes are correctly counted. This confidence is produced by a ballot that resists tampering, is difficult to forge or destroy, and can be examined and understood by the ordinary voter without recourse to expert opinion or special equipment. Various technologies have been proposed to meet this requirement, but to date only one has been used in elections: a paper ballot marked with the voter’s votes (including contests not voted), in plain language understandable to the voter. Unless and until a technology is developed that offers equal or superior security at an equal or superior price, CPSR strongly advocates that the votes of every voter be recorded in plain language on paper at the time that the vote is cast, and that the paper ballot be retained in ballot boxes and treated as an official elections document. All DREs should produce a paper ballot that may be inspected by the voter prior to completing the voting act. No DRE that lacks this capability can be considered secure or reliable.

The Report discusses the possibility of verification using "electronic" means. We are aware of certain proposals for voters to verify their votes by use of technologies such as smart cards or homomorphic encryption(4). It’s worth noting that these approaches have serious problems. (A smart card is used by some DREs to authorize voters to vote on the DRE, but voter verification is an entirely different application.) Consequently, these efforts seem to have stalled, with no realistic deployment date in sight. In many cases, the basic problem is cost: it has proven difficult to get the price of a secure artifact containing smart technology within even ten times the cost of a piece of paper.

Thus it would be a mistake to plan the security of California’s elections around new voter verification technologies, because these technologies are not certain to arrive, or to be cost-effective when they do arrive. The most proven media for durably and securely recording votes is paper. Thus, while CPSR has no theoretical objection to new verification technologies, there are not currently any suitable alternatives to paper, nor will there be soon.

Instead of searching in vain for alternatives to paper, CPSR urges that effort instead be directed towards better integrating paper ballot printing with DRE technology. Many DREs already include a printer, and new DREs appear to be required to have one(5).