29 minutes ago
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Concerned about the reliability of electronic voting, a federal panel is examining ways to safeguard polling from hackers and bad software to avoid another disputed presidential election this November.
The first public hearing Wednesday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission comes as many states consider legislation to require a paper record of every vote cast as a backup to technology they consider potentially faulty or vulnerable to malicious attack.
About 50 million Americans this fall are expected to use the ATM-like voting machines, which states rushed to get to replace paper ballots after Florida's hanging-chad fiasco in 2000.
Critics say the touchscreen machines can't be trusted because they don't leave a paper trail.
"My primary concerns ... are there is no way for voters to verify that their votes were recorded correctly, there is no way to publicly count the votes, (and) in the case of a controversial election, meaningful recounts are impossible," said Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, who was scheduled to testify before the commission.
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