Edwards becomes the first candidate to support "open source" for voting systems

[draft_mario_cuomo]

It is good to see Edwards lead on another important issue.

==John Edwards supports "open source" for voting systems
by Alan Dechert
June 27, 2007

GRANITE BAY, CA -- John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to support "open source code" for election systems. In a letter dated June 21st addressed to Alan Dechert, the Edwards campaign stated that, "To ensure security, these machines should be programmed with an open source code for complete transparency, and election results should be safeguarded by voter-verified paper records."

Currently, software used in election systems remains the proprietary property of vendors. This situation has created a continual problem when anomalous results have been reported and independent experts are denied the ability to review how the systems work. A growing body of critics oppose this privatization of the voting system.

"Open source" means that the computer instructions written by programmers are publicly available. Open source software is rapidly replacing proprietary software in other applications, including the Internet and military applications.

"We congratulate Senator Edwards for taking a leadership role in the fight to restore public oversight of the voting system," said Alan Dechert, president of Open Voting Consortium. ==

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2662

[Mass]

1. Paper ballot is the correct answer.\nt

[Snarkoleptic]

2. At some point a computer is used to tabulate even paper ballots.

Which is why open source is absolutely essential to the transparency of the process.
We can count, recount, and recount again, but it the software is tilted, we risk more fraud.
This video says it all for me...
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/40755/