Think Tank: A vote tally with a paper record would only raise costs, create confusion

As PC World reports, a recent report issued by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation states its case against the requirement of a paper trail alongside an electronic vote tally, saying that such a requirement would offer no security benefit and only raise voting systems' operating costs.

ITIF's Daniel Castro says that the proposed requirement would prevent the use of "innovative voting technology," which his report says offers "more security, transparency and reliability" than paper alone.

While the U.S. House mulls a bill that would enforce such a requirement, Castro insists that the "human element," along with disputes between the paper and electronic records, would make an accurate vote count impossible.

"People wouldn't know which record was accurate," says Castro, "the paper or the electronic record."

Contrary to Castro's assertion that voting machines can be trusted as other electronic systems are, says Association for Computing Machinery chairman Eugene Spafford, machines such as ATMs and computer databases are held to standards that voting machines are not.

ACM doesn't call for elimination of electronic voting machines, but for random audits and paper trails.

Says VerifiedVoting president Pamela Smith: "Consider the source."

"This is an industry body that has come out with this screed to support the industry."

Read the entire PC World article HERE.



