In case you didn’t want to rip through the pages upon pages of the EAC’s Voluntary Voting System Guidlines or the 600-page monster version before firing off your two cents on e-voting, Ars Technica nicely overviews them for us. For one, paper trails are now a de facto requirement, since “independent, voter-verifiable records” are required for certification, meaning we no longer have to pray that the machine’s software is up to snuff.
https://gizmodo.com/uncle-sam-wants-to-know-how-you-feel-about-e-voting-mac-317495
More to the nitty-gritty, what emerges from the guidelines is something along the lines of an actual technical standard with “revised and clarified language.” And they actually have to be tested, not just rubber-stamped by third-parties hand-picked by vendors. Best of all, while technically the guidelines are voluntary, a bunch of state legislatures are voting to make them mandatory, giving them the force of law. Must be a glum day over at Diebold Premier Election Systems‘ HQ, lamenting the days of a total lack of oversight. [Ars, Flickr]
https://gizmodo.com/diebold-pulls-a-reverse-cingular-rebrands-voting-machi-290494
