Voting machines: There's nothing PROPRIETARY about COUNTING.
It just burns me up that this is even up for debate. I sent the following letter this morning. I have been a supporter of the Open Voting Consortium and urge you, dear reader, to make a donation today.


To : <SF Board of supervisors>
Cc : <Mayor Gavin Newsom>
Subject : Voting machines: There's nothing PROPRIETARY about COUNTING.
----- Message Text -----
You start at 1... then you go to 2.. on to 3...

Or at least, that's how we hope it works.

But software is tricky business. I should know, I've been a software
developer for most of my life after getting hooked when I was 12 years
old. Even if one's code is very straightforward, there's always the
possibility of bugs or other unexpected behavior. The best solution to
this is peer review.

Voting machine companies that claim that their source is full of
proprietary secrets are scared. They're scared that their software can't
stand on its own merits, or more sinisterly, that we'll find something we
won't like. Even if they're being honest now, we can't give them a free
pass for the future: software can be changed and updated at the blink of
an eye. If we don't know how the machines work, how would we know when
they've made a change under the hood?

Imagine if we were seeking vote-counting services from companies that used
Oompa-Loompas to do the counting. Open source voting is analogous to a
company allowing observers to watch the Oompa-Loompas load the votes
into big plastic bins. The bins are loaded into vans and the observers
ride along too, so that they can watch what happens to the bins inside the
vans. The Oompa-Loompas drive to the central warehouse and start counting
all the votes, with the observers carefully watching every step.

Or: we can use the company that picks up the bins in secret, drives them
to an undisclosed location and simply announces the results. Even if we
are allowed one ride-along, there's nothing to stop them from changing
their procedure in the future.

Software is merely instructions for a computer. There's nothing
proprietary about counting! We have to take a stand, and say: If you want
us to use your software then, so sorry, you'll have to let us see how it
works. That's the business you've chosen, and that's the way it's going to
have to be!

Please do whatever you can to improve the transparency and security of our
voting systems, whether choosing to have software count the votes, or
Oompa-Loompas.

Thanks for listening,
Ray Greenwell