LXer: CA's Sec. of State Says Open-Source Software Needed to Safeguard Electronic Vot
 

Published at LXer:

California's secretary of state, Debra Bowen, believes that open-source software should be used in elections involving electronic voting machines, to protect against error and fraud. Speaking in Cambridge, MA, [on Thursday] during a panel discussion at the EmTech organized by Technology Review, Bowen noted that individual counties are currently responsible for purchasing voting machines. Often the choice is left up to an IT professional who may lack detailed knowledge of cryptography and computer security. But the biggest concern, according to Bowen, is a lack of access to the machines' underlying code. "Many times, a person has no legal right to review the software, even if they could," she said.

Read More...