Re: news article of interest

From: Ron Crane <voting_at_lastland_dot_net>
Date: Thu Aug 18 2005 - 14:29:10 CDT

Cameron L. Spitzer wrote:

This is in the text
http://www.holt.house.gov/pdf/HR%20550%20VCIA.pdf
(8) Prohibition of use of undisclosed
software in voting systems.---No voting
system shall at any time contain or ues any
undisclosed software.  Any voting system containing or using
software shall disclose the source code, object code,
and executable representation of that software to the
Commission, and the Commission shall make that
source code, object code,and executable representation
available for inspection upon request by any person.

page 9 of 23
  

And this is the bill's status:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.00550:
Latest Major Action: 2/2/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on House Administration.

It has 144 co-sponsors -- and the current House leadership will never let it see the light of day. Further, even if enacted into law, it doesn't contain adequate provisions for enforcement (check out the procedures in s.3, and the time frames to which it refers in HAVA s.402 -- 90 days + 60 days from the date of filing of a complaint, and no penalties for noncompliance). Further, it would be read by existing vendors not to cover firmware -- they would argue that that's "hardware", not "software".

It's a good attempt at fixing some holes, but only an attempt.

-R


-R

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Received on Wed Aug 31 23:17:28 2005