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Name :   David Gilbert
Organization :   N/A
Post Date :   9/30/2005

Section Comments
Section :  6.8
Page no. :  
Line no.:  
Comment :  Dear EAC Commissioners:  
I believe it is within your interpretive powers as the EAC to define the  
document described as the mandatory paper audit trail in Section 301(a)2  
of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).  

No legitimate audit can be carried out unless that audit uses a  
contemporaneous independent indelible record of the voter’s intent. No  
electronic record -- unseen by the voter and subject to programming error,  
equipment malfunction or even malicious tampering -- can reasonably meet  
that standard, nor any reprint (unverified by the voter) of that same  
electronic record. Thus it will vastly improve the legitimacy of the  
nation’s elections if the EAC clarifies that the manual paper audit trail  
shall be voter-verified.  

On January 18, 2005 Professor Ron Rivest introduced a resolution (#13-05)  
to require voter-verified paper trails at the TGDC meeting. That  
resolution was voted down, by members of the committee who know less about  
computer security than the person who introduced the measure.  

I urge the EAC to reinstate the recommendation in resolution #13-05 and  
require the essential safeguard of voter-verified paper records.  

I further urge you:  

-to reject wireless capability of any kind in our voting systems;  

-to clarify terms used for VVPAT such that standards for voter-verified  
paper ballots (e.g. optical scan) are not confused with standards for  
voter-verified paper audit trails (e.g. printers on DREs);  

-to adopt Resolution #17-05 for more stringent testing of voting systems  
for security; and  

-to allow interoperability so that voting systems from different vendors  
are able to work together more freely, saving taxpayer resources.  

Thank you for your consideration.