Here is a follow-up to yesterday’s note on how Georgia provided an example of how black box devices undermine confidence and foster suspicion.

First, there is a recent New York Times article  A Tale of Three (Electronic Voting) Elections by Adam Cohen that provides some comparison of the Georgia incident with a couple others in which e-voting systems were apparently part of a suspect election result.

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As a sad example of suspicion arising from current e-voting systems, I’d like you to read a story that I don’t really know how to believe — which is my point.

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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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Good news from New Jersey! A judge there has reversed her earlier decision that test results on Sequoia voting machines could not be made public — a story that we discussed a few months ago here. The new ruling means that conmputer experts at Princeton University will be able to analyze the machines starting next week, and publish their results in late September before the November election.

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There’s a pretty regular stream of news about activities in the office of California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, de-certifying or re-certifying voting systems following the results of the state’s top-to-bottom review. Rather than making an up to the minute comment, I thought it would be useful to re-visit what I think is one of the more notable past scenes in the on-going drama.

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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.

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Today’s "The World" broadcast of Public Radio International had a couple of nifty quotes I wanted to share:

"The paper trail is not helpful if the software is not doing what what it should."

"For any electronic voting system to be successful, the voters have to trust the voting machines. In the U.S., that trust simply does not exist."

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