Electronic voting update

From today's Wired News:

E-Vote Firms Seek Voter Approval
In the wake of concerns raised about security flaws in electronic voting systems, a lobbying group is strategizing a public relations and lobbying campaign to help voting companies "repair short-term damage done by negative reports and media coverage."

In a surprise move, according to one vendor, companies are reversing their long-time opposition to giving voters paper receipts as a way to verify electronic voting results, a change critics have been seeking for months.

According to a draft plan produced by the Information Technology Association of America, a lobbying and trade association for the tech industry, electronic voting machine makers are discussing ways to convince state election officials that their products are the gold standard and worthy of taxpayer money.

The plan calls for a media campaign to "generate positive public perception" of the companies and to "reduce substantially the level and amount of criticism from computer scientists and other security experts about the fallibility of electronic voting systems."

As I said recently, I'm not a conspiracy theorist in this area. But the more I read about the flaws academic researchers are finding in the proprietary e-voting equipment currently in use, the more I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation is right; we won't be able to put these concerns to bed until we have auditable paper trails and open source systems.