Continuing the story of accessible voting and the "we just build stuff" mantra of the TrustTheVote project, I have an example of a serious mis-understanding that can easily arise because of the jargon and procedural confusion I wrote about earlier.

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Today I have an excellent example of how important it is, and sometimes difficult, to maintain clarity around the technology that we’re building in the TrustTheVote project, and what we are (and are not) doing in OSDV generally. This particular example illustrates how voting technology is already bedeviled by jargon, inconsistent terminology, and procedural confusion — so that terminology and explanation that work for one group of people just don’t work elsewhere.

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In a previous posting, I referred to paper ballots as part of a recipe for election procedures that provide provide integrity and assurance by not relying solely on either computers or people to operate perfectly. As promised, here is some more info, especially important because there seems to be an increasing trend towards a "hybrid" style of election operations with both paper ballots and a variant of computerized voting.

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I previously reported that "transparency" was key word for people’s positive response to our our recent DC demonstration of our digital voter registration system (DVRS). There is also a similar transparency issue with voting systems, and voting systems also have another transparency issue around paper ballots; and then there is the issue of open source. Here’s the how the 3-way connection works.

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The dust has settled – sort of – in the “lost ballots snafu”
in Palm Beach County Florida, enough that I can correct a very serious
mis-reading of the events, and briefly summarize the two completely
contradictory “outcomes” of investigation: (1) it’s an accounting problem, not
a technology problem, and (2) it’s a technology problem. Either way, the result
is a failed election – not just a clouded outcome, but a completely failed
election. The very short story: a recount was needed, 3000+ ballots couldn’t be

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A news article from Denver notes that the city is reversing its experiment from its last election, and going "back to paper."

It’s Back to Paper Ballots, Precincts, For This Year’s Elections 

This only sort of true. Yes, it’s true that Denver is using a voting method that election officials say they’re more comfortable with, and that some voters will likely view as more trustworthy. 

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I wanted to call attention to another fine article in the "Freedom to Tinker" blog, this one by Dan Wallach.

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