Voting equipment; locality that acquired DREs prior to 7-1-07 may temporarily conduct election.. (HB2422)

This legislation is very important to Electoral Boards across the Commonwealth and has been strongly endorsed by the Virginia Eelctoral Board Association and the Virginia Registrars Association of Virginia. It repeals the prohibition of the purchase of Direct Recording Electronic voting equipment, voting equipment that has proved reliable, tamper-proof and preferred by the large majority of voters throughout the Commonwealth. 90% of our jurisdictions throughout the state use DREs and beleive that they provide the securest means of insuring the integrity of the vote.

Clarification: I am the Chair of the Culpeper County Electoral Board.

Unless the state is going to require paper receipts, I certainly hope this doesn't pass. Electronic voting equipment is unverifiable and easily tampered with. I'm a career programmer (heck, I wrote Richmond Sunlight), and I know dozens (hundreds?) of fellow programmers. Not a single one I know thinks that electronic voting is a good idea, because we know how unreliable that it is. Paper receipts, however, change all of that.

Without a paper trail I do not understand how this form of voting machine can provide the "securist" way of voting. How can you perform a "recount" other than pushing the button again to get the same read-out? Is the software open for public inspection and audit? Doubt it as the software is considered "proprietary" to the manufacturer and not open to outside inspection. What about power failures? At least with opti-scanners you can still vote on the paper ballot and have the ballot collected in a secure box until power returns for later tallying. Would you make an ATM deposit without a receipt and just trust the machine? Even McDonald's offers receipts. Paperless non-verifiable voting processes are not in the best interest of democracy. As a former hardware/software sales person I appreciate the adage of GIGO.