Should the U.S. Ban Paperless Electronic Voting Machines?
NEW YORK, Oct 15, 2008 (ASCRIBE NEWS via COMTEX) — In the October issue of Communications of the ACM (CACM), Stanford University Professor David L. Dill says it will be impossible to determine whether the victorious candidates in many states were elected by the voters because no voter verifiable paper trail exists. He advocates a Congressional mandate to use voter-verified paper ballots. Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (http://www.itif.org/) contends that no voting system offers voters verifiable proof that their ballot has been counted. He concludes that narrowly focusing on paper trails ignores the importance of securing all steps in the voting process, and urges long-term solutions to this challenge. As the 2008 election approaches, this Point/Counterpoint debate is part of CACM’s recently expanded editorial scope with news, viewpoints, and features for computing practitioners, researchers, and educators. The October issue is available online i
