Re-inventing How America Votes in a Digital Democracy
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 20th, 2009
The current voting system vendors recently released a paper on election technology and open source. As a pleasant surprise, it is a mixed bag, in that much of the report’s rhetoric is asspecious as previously seen, but there are also signs of the vendors taking steps towards comprehending what the voting system market would be like, with open source digital voting technology.
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 25th, 2009
I have to confess to being appalled by the number of times recently that I have heard people talk about potential benefits of "security by obscurity" for voting systems. It’s one of those bad old ideas that just won’t die: if you hide the inner workings (source code) of a complex device (a voting system), that makes it harder for an adversary to break (hack, steal elections).
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 9th, 2009
Well, the issue of "source code disclosure" just keeps coming back at us. Here is the latest variant that needs some de-confusion: how are open source practices different from proprietary-systems vendors who voluntarily choose to disclose the source code of their software?
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 21st, 2009
It may surprise some readers to learn that
there is one election technology reform situation where we are not in favor of open source as a
solution. Yes, you read that right.
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 20th, 2009
On this important day in history, and inspired by our new President’s call to action, I want to briefly update you, the real stakeholders in our democracy, on our progress. I first want to thank all readers here — from the merely interested, to the ardent supporters of the Foundation — for your interest and passion in how we sustain one of the pillars of our democracy: the process of elections and the means by which we vote.
Today, at the start of a new chapter in our nation’s history, we have some thoughts and announcements.
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2009
Here’s a question that came up a few times in our recent visit with the Congressional Internet Caucus: what exactly do you mean by open source? One variant of this question was: how can you expect to develop for real elections if you are operating as a "chaotic collective of flip-flop-wearing techno-hippies?"
It’s a good question, and worth an detailed answer, which I ask you to read on our wiki (here) if you want the complete answer. But a short summary here is:
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 4th, 2008
Greetings Friends & Supporters of the OSDV Project-
Posted in Uncategorized on May 9th, 2008
In a recent article on Businessweek.com, John Hagel and John
Seely Brown describe the powerful innovation strategy used by the Myelin Repair
Foundation (MRF). MRF is a Silicon Valley
nonprofit using an open-source approach to scientific research and drug
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 18th, 2008
Nearly unbelievable, but perhaps predictable. The Brad Blog reports on a warning letter that Dr. Ed Felten, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University has received from Sequoia Voting Systems, should he and a colleague (Andrew Appel) proceed to analyze the Company’s AVC Advantage product.
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 3rd, 2008
Interesting news: on 27 February, the New York State Board of Elections unanimously adopted a resolution that would provide for waiver of fees for certification testing of open source software. The official announcement says that the Board may elect to waive fees (that a vendor pays for examination of a voting system) if the vendor meets some specific conditions of proof that the system is open source.
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