September 29, 2005 Dear Technical Guidelines Development Committee…

September 29, 2005



Dear Technical Guidelines Development Committee members,

I am writing to you in hopes of adding my voice to others that feel that our
sacred right is in danger. That each and every vote cast in America is
captured and counted. I have two major areas of concern. The lack of
verifiable paper ballots in current electronic voting systems. (I live in
Miami-Dade, FL which has such a system.) and the lack of transparency in the
electronic systems that count the electronically cast votes.

First: Please ensure the results of all future votes our great country.
Insist on a verifiable paper ballot for every state in the Union. The paper
ballot must be visually inspectable with the names of the candidates and
clear, positive voting marks. They should be deposited into secure voting
ballot boxes much the same whay we have done for years. Furthermore, the
paper ballot count should always be the authoritative count when disputes
arise.

Second: Electronic voting is great when used to get results quickly but are
too easily manipulated without detection. Require that all electronic voting
systems source code be publicly available and that the code be
electronically fingerprinted with a high-grade algorithm after it has been
approved for a given election and allow independent voting verifiers to
check the fingerprint of the software on any given voting machine not
exceeding more than 10% of the total units (this is to prevent disruption
while allowing for verification.) The large voting systems companies would
still retain copyright and intellectual property rights but they would not
be able to use that as an excuse for obfuscation of the internals of the
systems. Suggest to Congress that a law be passed prohibiting voting
systems vendors from restricting local goverments from inspecting the
internals of the voting systems under the guise of intellectual
property/trade secret protection.

Counting a vote is not rocket science. There is nothing proprietary in what
a Diebold or ESS system do. It is in essence what computers and software
have done effectively for nearly a half century, to add numbers and store
information.

I have been in IT for 15 years and know full well how easy it is to modify
electronic records and systems to suit the need of the modifier. I
currently work as a self-employed IT consultant for home office and small
office users and spend much of my time recovering data from heavily
compromised PCs. I work hard to ensure going forward they are as secure as
can be while still being usable. The voting system in this country deserves
no less.

I am hopeful that an institution such as the NIST with bright and
distiguished people can acheive toward ensuring the American vote remains
the highest standard of democratic expression worldwide.

Sincerely,
-felipe
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Felipe Vidal
felipe@nthdegree.org