Reply #9: The weakness of all computerized voting [View All]

is that it doesn't maintain a paper trail (unless of course, it's just to print ballots).

Nonetheless, I haven't seen any proof that paper is required for security. It's only been 10 years since the dawn of ecommerce when critics we're crying that there would be no way to conduct business securely online (by 2010 it's estimated that 80% of all transactions will be online). If a similar breakthrough to public-key encryption were to happen for voting it could change everything for the better.

Re: being able to stuff the electronic ballot box, or read from two different sets of books--these have been addressed via cryptography and actually very effectively.

And of course, we're never actually sure with paper ballots either. We saw what happened with the paper trail in Florida in 2000 and it didn't make a damn bit of difference that they were audited.

Though I'm playing devil's advocate I'm on your side Bev--in the meantime, paper is still best.