NIST is the first federal agency to come to this conclusion and is significant because of the organization's role in the scientific community and in advising lawmakers. NIST employs 2,900 scientists, engineers and support staff and is home to NIST laboratories and the Baldridge National Quality Program. NIST advises the Election Assistance Commision, the organization formed by congress after the voting problems in Florida in 2000.
The organization condemned voting without a paper record and recommended voting with paper ballots that can be read by optical scan machines. This provides the individual voter with the ability to verify that his or her intent was captured accurately and gives election officials the ability to verify the accuracy of the system or an individual race through a recount of the votes.
NIST says in its report that the lack of a paper trail for each vote "is one of the main reasons behind continued questions about voting system security and diminished public confidence in elections." The report repeats the contention of the computer security community that "a single programmer could 'rig' a major election." (Washingtonpost.com)
This draft finding is significant because five states use electronic voting without a paper record: Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and South Carolina.
The following states, along with the District, use such systems in at least some jurisdictions, sometimes in conjunction with optical-scan systems that provide a paper record:
Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey (which will switch to a paper-trail system by 2008), Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming. (Source: Washingtonpost.com)
To read the NIST report, visit this site.
