The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnations of such voting systems by a federal agency.  Some key findings:

1.     "Security of electronic voting is condemned: paper systems should be included, agency says" -- Washington Post, December 1, 2006.

2.     Paperless (external) electronic voting machines "cannot be made secure."

3.     NIST said that voting systems should allow election officials to recount ballots independently from a voting machine's software. The recommendations endorse "optical-scan" systems, in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by a computer and electronic systems that print a paper summary of each ballot, which voters review and election officials save for recounts.

4.     NIST says that voting systems should not rely on a machine's software to provide a record of the votes cast.

5.     Paper trails have had their own problems. Printers have jammed or otherwise failed, causing some election directors to question whether a paper trail is an improvement.

COALITION FOR VOTING INTEGRITY COMMENTS:

 

q       The above has been consistent CVI position.

q       The11/7/06 election in Bucks County went smoothly and machines easy to use ... we had predicted this ...both in editorial meeting and in published pre-election letters to editor.  The machines are "easy"... but this election was a test of the mechanical running of the machines ... NOT the accuracy.  That cannot be tested...there is no way to audit these machines' performance in an election! The NIST study supports this fact!

 

q       The “internal paper” which could be produced in the Danaher machines is simply a re-creation from software; it is NOT in any way tied to original entry of voter ...it is unverifiable and has been proven to be unreliable…NIST concurs, indicating such a system “cannot be made secure” and non-independent software is unacceptable.

 

q       Both parties provided proof of "vote-flipping" in this election and that's just on the screen where you can see ... just imagine what is going on inside, where no one knows because that programming is a secret ...owned by the vendors. The PA GOP actually referenced vote flipping as having occurred in Bucks County in their detailed letter of problems to Secretary of State Pedro Cortes.

 

q       You would not use a bank where there was no receipt given ... where you did not get a monthly statement ... where you had to accept what the bank said was your balance ... and no recourse to prove that balance ... well, that is just a small example (in effect) of what essentially happens on the machines in Bucks (no, we don't want receipts given out ... but rather securely retained).