Wisconsin passes open source requirement for electronic voting

[LittleClarkie]

From Dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/4/192637/3405

"As background, this legislation was introduced by Democrat Mark Pocan, but the Wisconsin legislature is republican controlled. Nonetheless, the vote was 91-4 in the assembly and 29-2 in the senate. You can read the full text of the legislation here, but some important nuggets:

"If a municipality uses an electronic voting systm for voting at any election, the municpal clerk shall provide any person, upon request, at the expense of the municipality, the coding for the software that the municipality uses to operate the system and tally the votes cast."

As Milly Watt has diaried at Dailykos, Diebold is fighting similar legislation in North Carolina and we may yet face a similar attempt here in the land o' cheese.

Additionally, the previous verification requirement has been strengthened from merely providing a receipt, to requiring that an actual paper ballot to be printed:

"If the device consists of an electronic voting machine, it generates a complete paper ballot showing all votes cast by each elector that is visually verifiable by the elector before the elector leaves the machine and that enables a manual count or recount of each vote cast by the elector."

Hat tip to my new favorite local blog Badger Blues for the story."

A link to his favorite local blog:
http://www.badgerblues.org/

[LittleClarkie]

1. Hey!

Important stuff here!

[Earth_First]

2. Excellent! I'll be taking this information with me tomorrow!

A delegation of vendors from the various optical scan and touch screen voting corporations will be giving a demonstration tomorrow on their product(s) to the public as we voice our opinion(S) on verifiable, transparent elections and hands on experience with their product(s).

My VERY first question tomorrow of these people is this:

"Why is this demonstration being held in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day?"

(the hours are from noon till six)

[DemReadingDU]

3. K&R

[MountainLaurel]

4. Nice!

WI is on our list of places where my husband might go to law school. This makes me feel better about moving to the place that gave the world Tommy Thompson.