John Edwards Supports "Open Source" for Voting Systems

[helderheid]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2007

Contact:

Alan Dechert, 916-772-5360
President, Open Voting Consortium
http://openvoting.org
9560 Windrose Lane
Granite Bay, CA 95746

Reference:
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/edwards-62107a.pdf

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.

Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit California corporation that seeks to bring about a fully public voting system. OVC has offered free consulting services to all the major presidential candidates -- Republican as well as Democratic. OVC has not endorsed any candidate for president and is unlikely to do so.
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[riderinthestorm]

1. Too important to drop. K & R!

Open source code support means Edwards has jumped way ahead of the other candidates in my voting consideration.

[helderheid]

4. same here - this is BIG

[riderinthestorm]

5. Is Edwards the first "Tier One" candidate ever, to acknowledge voting problems?

I admit, I haven't followed the candidates' positions on the issue extremely closely but if I can recall, Edwards may even be the biggest candidate (politician?) so far to admit that we have a problem right?

Anyone know for sure?

I am really grateful though, that someone is going to step up to the plate and begin demanding reform - dammit, I want my vote to count!

[helderheid]

6. I believe Kerry mentioned it in the debates but I'm not sure how seriously he took it.

[bryant69]

2. This does seem like good news

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Damn! This is so obvious that...

I don't know why it hasn't caught on.

Again, for years I've been saying that counting votes and sending them in is trivial programming and no one should have proprietary code.

I'm not a real programmer, but I managed to hack up about five pages of QuickBasic code to create a restaurant cash register program years ago. And, I had it phone home.

So, how is counting cheeseburgers all that much different than counting votes, and why does it take a full CD of executables, dlls, and registry changes to count them?

Aside from the value added turning a $300 terminal into a $5,000 voting machine, not much difference at all.

[helderheid]

7. I never understood why people were satisfied in the privatization of our elections!

[RoyGBiv]

8. Excellent ...

About freakin' time at least one politician at least spoke of the issue.

[New Era]

9. Dennis Kucinich has...

Oh wait...that's right, he's "unelectable"....

However that does not take away from what Edwards is trying to do. I'm glad he is shedding light on this issue.

[helderheid]

10. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

:loveya: Dennis Kucinich!

[New Era]

15. Thank you!

Long time reader. Over 3 years now. This site has helped beyond what words I could write. The knowledge growing in this forum is a very powerful thing.

[RoyGBiv]

19. This is true ...

Although it's not so much that he's unelectible, rather invisible to anyone who isn't a political junkie. Whether that's his fault or not, I won't speculate. Dennis' commentary on patents and support of Creative Commons (the "issue" to which I referred was tearing down this secretive, proprietary monster that controls these things) is something I, as an interested party, have followed closely. And, he gives a somewhat mixed message.

Even many Kucinich supports have never read and/or heard his thoughts on this.

[Snotcicles]

11. Once again John Edwards speaks to the issues that effect all Americans. nt

[file83]

12. He may have just struck a key issue for me...if he's the only one supporting this then...

I'll vote Edwards.

So the other candidates better pay attention.

[Richard Steele]

13. Good for him! K&R.

[Pawel K]

14. FORGET OPEN SOURCE...FORGET E-VOTING

As long as you have electronic voting that leaves behind no paper trail opening up its source isn't going to do shit. This data can still be manipulated with no evidance of it happening.

Paper trails are the only way to go, why this hasn't been made into law yet, almost 3 years after the 2004 election, is unbelievable.

[helderheid]

16. Please check this out

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/our_solution

[spooky3]

26. "and election results should be safeguarded by voter-verified paper records"

That was in the very first paragraph of the story the OP posted.

[Snotcicles]

17. Better yet go to a uniform paper ballot in all states. 0-4 last digit of

SS# votes on Monday 6-9 votes on tuesday.

[porphyrian]

18. Good, as it should be. - n/t

[helderheid]

20. SAMPLE OF HOW IT WORKS:

http://user.it.uu.se/~jan/voting-project/ballot2.html

[helderheid]

24. THE PAPER BALLOT

THE PAPER BALLOT

If you had been in a voting booth the ballot would now have been printed on a printer located within the booth. The ballot is then to be placed in a special privacy folder. The folder covers the ballot so that only about half an inch of it is exposed. The exposed border has a barcode, but no other printing.

Print ballot

Get the ballot as




The barcode on your ballot encodes your vote with this number: 7327732038926995829063996155169473474421
If you have a barcode scanner, you may print out the ballot and verify this.

In the polling place there will be a station with a scanner where you can have the barcode scanned while you're wearing headphones so you can hear your selections read to you. The ballot does not have to be removed from the folder; your privacy is assured. Then you go to the ballot box for depositing of your ballot.

Verify ballot

You may now verify your ballot by listening to an audio file generated from the barcode number above.

Play audio as


Windows note: If you have problems playing the audio file from Internet Explorer; try disabling Internet Explorer's own player in the Media Bar. Do this by clicking on the Media button on the main Toolbar, then click "Media Options" in the new pane that opens. Now select "Settings", and then uncheck "Play web media in the bar".

Return to the online ballot.
The Open Voting Consortium

[helderheid]

27. k

[helderheid]

21. KICK

:kick:

[Edweird]

22. Going open source would mean keeping the machines. Keeping the machines

virtually guarantees Edwards won't get elected. Catch 22.

[helderheid]

23. Take time to explore post 22 and this site:

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org

This is the ONLY group associated with voting machines I support. It's paper or it's them for me.

[formercia]

25. This is a no-brainer

every honest candidate should support open-source. Now, how about paper ballots with auditable chain of custody?


Keep it simple.

[pberq]

28. Kick & Nominated

[tbyg52]

29. Junk the proprietary-code DREs!

I really want hand-counted paper ballots, but this sounds like a good start.