1/30/03

CONTACT: Dawn Levy, News Service: (650) 725-1944, dawnlevy@stanford.edu

COMMENT: David L. Dill, Computer Science: (650) 743-6139, 
elections@chicory.stanford.edu

Relevant Web URLs:
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html

Computerized voting systems pose unacceptable risks unless they 
provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, technologists warn

Warning of programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious 
tampering, computer scientists from around the country, led by 
Stanford Professor David Dill, say computerized voting machines 
should provide a voter-verifiable audit trail.

Eighty-eight computer scientists and technologists from universities 
and laboratories across the nation have signed Dill`s ``Resolution on 
Electronic Voting,`` which states that it is ``crucial that voting 
equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a 
permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the 
voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to 
alter after it has been checked.``

The full text of the resolution and list of endorsers, including 22 
from Stanford, are available online at: 
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html.

Computerized voting has been a focus of discussion in many 
jurisdictions. On Jan. 31, Northern California`s Santa Clara County 
Board of Supervisors will meet to consider a recommendation from the 
County Registrar to purchase Sequoia DRE machines, which Dill says do 
not provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Santa Clara is one of 
nine California counties under court order to replace punch-card 
voting systems by March 2004.

Paperless, touch-screen voting machines are used by nearly one in 
five voting precincts nationwide. ``They pose an unacceptable risk 
that errors or deliberate election-rigging will go undetected, since 
they do not provide a way for the voters to verify independently that 
the machine correctly records and counts the votes they have cast,`` 
says Dill, an expert in finding design errors in computer systems. In 
2001, he was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and 
Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his contributions to verification of 
circuits and systems.

While some voting equipment vendors and government officials say that 
paperless, computerized voting systems are reliable, Dill and his 
colleagues disagree. ``Without a voter-verifiable audit trail, it is 
not practical to provide reasonable assurance of the integrity of 
these voting systems by any combination of design review, inspection, 
testing, logical analysis or control of the system development 
process,`` the resolution says.

The resolution is being circulated at a time when many states and 
counties are seeking to upgrade their voting equipment. In response 
to problems with elections in recent years, funding is being made 
available at all levels of government to upgrade election equipment.

``Unfortunately, if available funds are spent on fatally-flawed 
`high-tech` voting equipment, it will be a long time before there is 
more funding to adopt truly superior voting technology,`` the 
statement says.

The computer scientists and technologists are urging jurisdictions 
that have already purchased such voting systems to replace or modify 
them to produce ballots that can be checked independently by the 
voter before being submitted and that cannot be altered after 
submission. They urge government officials who must replace outdated 
punch card voting systems to refrain from purchasing new voting 
equipment that does not provide a voter-verifiable audit trail.

``Election reform is now receiving much-needed attention, but we must 
guard against changes that inadvertently create even worse 
problems,`` Dill writes. ``Unauditable voting equipment will erode 
confidence in our elections, causing further disillusionment of the 
voting public.``