California's secretary of state, Debra Bowen, believes that
open-source software should be used in elections involving
electronic voting machines, to protect against error and fraud.
Speaking in Cambridge, MA, [on Thursday] during a panel
discussion at the EmTech organized by Technology Review, Bowen
noted that individual counties are currently responsible for
purchasing voting machines. Often the choice is left up to an IT
professional who may lack detailed knowledge of cryptography and
computer security. But the biggest concern, according to Bowen,
is a lack of access to the machines' underlying code. "Many
times, a person has no legal right to review the software, even
if they could," she said. Bowen has a history of pushing for
greater transparency and accountability in election technology.
After taking office in November 2006, she commissioned a top-to-
bottom review of e-voting systems, including detailed analyses
of source code, documentation, security, and usability. "All of
the systems had security is