Measures can be taken, however, to protect the integrity of electronic voting, says Eugene H. Spafford, the executive director of Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security.

"Those of us who work in technology, particularly in the areas of security and liability, are very concerned about elections," Spafford says. "Our concern is that these electronic systems could be tampered with or, more likely, have problems with the software, and the results can't be audited or recounted if there is a question.

If that were to happen, we can't have a do-over. The elections are already done. For a close election, this throws things into considerable doubt, possibly into the courts to decide the outcome.

"We can do better. We have technology that produces a paper version of the vote in addition to the electronic version."

Spafford, who has testified before Congress and served on federal and military boards and committees on cybersecurity, suggests a precinct-based optical scan system to ensure accurate vote counts. He says these steps could be taken without enormous cost and, in some cases, would be cheaper than methods in place.

The optical scan system is a setup in which voters either vote on a computer system that prints a ballot or manually fills out a ballot that goes through a scanner.

"This allows for quick counting, and it doesn't have the error of human counting," Spafford says. "At the same time, we have paper ballots as a backup and verification in case the counts come out very odd in some respect or in case there is some question."

Related Links
Democracy in the 21st century at TerraDaily.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News