David Dill, Professor, Computer Science Department, "I Think I Voted: E-Voting vs. Democracy"
ABSTRACT:
Touch-screen voting machines store records of cast votes in internal memory, where the voter cannot check them. Because of our system of secret ballots, once the voter leaves the polls there is no way anyone can determine whether the vote captured was what the voter intended. Why should voters trust these machines?
In January 2003, I drafted a "Resolution on Electronic Voting" stating that every voting system should have a "voter verifiable audit trail," which is a permanent record of the vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter, and which is saved for a recount if it is required. I posted the page with endorsements from many prominent computer scientists. At that point, I became embroiled in a nationwide battle for voting transparency that has continued now for three years.
In this talk, I will discuss the basic principles and issues in electronic voting, and some of the history of what has happened over the last few years.
Brief bio:
David L. Dill is a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he has been on the faculty since 1987. His primary research interest is formal verification of systems, the goal of which is to find design errors in systems, or prove that they are correct. He has authored over 100 academic publications on this subject, and is listed as a highly cited author by ISI. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Prof. Dill is the author of the "Resolution on Electronic Voting", which has been endorsed by many computer technologist as well as political scientists, lawyers, and other individuals. He served on the California Secretary of State's Ad Hoc Committee on Touch Screen Voting, the DRE Citizen's Oversight Committee for Santa Clara County,
California, and the IEEE P1583 voting standards committee. He has testified before the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, the U.S. Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. He received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Pioneer Award" in 2004 for his work on electronic voting. He is the founder of VerifiedVoting.org and the Verified Voting Foundation, non-profit organizations that champion reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States, and a member of the National Committee for Voting Integrity(www.votingintegrity.org).