] SB 500, the bill to require all electronic voting
] machines in Georgia to produce a permanent paper record,
] has passed out of the committee! To gain passage of
] SB-500 in this 2004 session, the bill now requires
] immediate action by the Senate Rules committee, the body
] responsible for putting legislation on the debate
] calendar for the Senate floor. Again, your calls and
] emails can tip the balance.

While this is exciting, I also have my misgivings. Clearly the electronic elections systems have security problems. We still aren't addressing them. We still aren't talking about auditing our policies and practices.

What we are doing instead is attaching a second system on to the side which offers paper ballots as a check.

I'm worried that what we've hatched here is a worst of both worlds solution where a logistically difficult, inaccurate, and insecure paper ballot system is tacked onto an insecure and failure prone electronic system which still has no transparency.

Security isn't about technology so much as its about how that technology is used. We're not even talking about addressing that.

This is a product of the fact that elections administrators have been almost totally unwilling to engage in a constructive dialog about these problems, preferring instead to play political spin zone with it and thereby eliminating any credibility they might have had.

While this is a political victory for those who are concerned about this problem, if you think its an ideal solution you've drunk the koolaid.

Blog for Democracy: SB-500 Update