The battle of accountable voting systems

Summary form only given. Touch-screen voting machines store records of cast votes in internal memory where the voter cannot check them. Because of our system of secret ballots, once the voter leaves the polls there is no way anyone can determine whether the vote captured was what the voter intended. Why should voters trust these machines? In December 2003, I drafted a resolution on electronic voting stating that every voting system should have a voter verifiable audit trail, which is a permanent record of the vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter, and which is saved for a recount if it is required. After many rewrites, I posted the page in January 2004 with endorsements from many prominent computer scientists. At that point, I became embroiled in a surprisingly fierce (and time consuming) battle that continues today. We still do not have an answer for why we should trust electronic voting machines, but a lot of evidence has emerged for why we should not. I discuss the basic principles and issues in electronic voting.