PROBLEMS WITH ELECTRONIC VOTING: Marc Rotenberg has a piece in Technology Review, noting:

Back in the real world, however, the evidence is mounting daily that a lot more work needs to be done before the vote counting process—truly the kernel of democracy—is turned over to devices that lack adequate auditing and operate in secret. One recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and Rice University found that the high-tech voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems allowed voters and poll workers to cast extra votes, and also that cryptographic keys, the basic element of system security, were not properly managed. The governor of Maryland has called for an investigation to determine whether the state’s $54 million purchase of these so-called direct recording electronic (or DRE) systems was a wise move.

Another report finds that during San Luis Obispo County’s March 2003 primary in California, absentee vote tallies were sent to an Internet site operated by Diebold several hours before the poll closed. According to election law, officials may not release tallies until voting is completed. An MIT-Caltech study found that regular test forms, which allow for verification, provide higher accuracy than DRE. Considering how much money will be spent in the next year to select the president of the United States, it is remarkable that more money is not being spent to ensure that the new technologies for vote tabulation actually work.

There’s a certain amount of conspiracy-theorizing on this topic (not in Rotenberg’s piece, but in general) but the fact is that electronic voting systems just aren’t up to the job. I don’t know enough to offer an opinion on whether they ever will be, but it seems pretty plain that they aren’t right now.

Here’s more from Salon’s Farhad Manjoo, though you’ll have to sit through an ad to read it if you don’t subscribe. There is a solution, of course. But will public officials be brave enough to endorse this technology?