Reply #10: Nice article on this year's bill! See if you can find this in there (because I'm tired

[Bill Bored]

of reading Holt bills)!

You wrote re software (non)disclosure:

"While that last qualifier, 'other investigation' might allow someone like us to review the hardware and software --- maybe --- the general public (read: the voters for whom the systems are theoretically there to serve) is entirely shut out of the process."

Well, not entirely. As you correctly point out, all one would have to do is review, analyze, or report on the technology. While Jo 6-Pack/Voter would have to know what she's doing, I don't think she'd be precluded from doing it. If she didn't know, the code would be gibberish to her anyway.

"And even we, presuming we were granted permission to look, would still be required, in any event, to sign a non-disclosure agreement first, limiting what we could, and couldn't report publicly about the system in question."

As I understand it, those limitations are not so severe. You could report on any problems you find; you just couldn't publish the code itself.

However, all that said, the larger problem with HR811 was the definition of the voting technology covered by this section. The definition in the previous bill did not even INCLUDE voting system source code! It therefore did not have to be disclosed at all. So, is that definition still in there, or has it been fixed as our best and brightest in the US Congress claimed it would be?