Federal takeover of voting machine industry

There have been many threads discussing the problems with electronic voting, notably the lack of transparency.

These devices are built on proprietary software and firmware. I'm not aware of any regulations requiring the ability to audit or be absolutely assured that there are no backdoors and other "enhancements" that would make the voting process less than 100% legit.

Now we don't trust private enterprise to print our money. The government took that over long ago. Shouldn't the government take over the design, construction, and implementation of voting technology? Of course there would need to be appropriate oversight within the government to be sure that the ruling party doesn't pull any fast ones.

At the very least there needs to be be fully auditable and verifiable
trail for each voting transaction while keeping the match between voter and their vote anonymous.

This issue is way off the radar screen for most Americans. If anything, the thought is that electronic voting would be an improvement over hanging chads. I thought so too before learning about who controls the industry.

Now I'm not so naive as to think that such a federal takeover could happen in today's anti-government climate but am interested if this might make the process less susceptible to corruption.

I think the machines are baloney.

They can help a person PRINT A PAPER BALLOT.

I think that's what they should do, and I don't care who makes them. They should be like a word processor. Help people print out a readable, paper ballot with their choices. The machines can help people avoid overvoting (voting for two candidates for the same position) or undervoting (forgetting to vote for a position that the voter wanted to vote for). Or help people with disabilities, or people who want instructions in a foreign language.

THE MACHINES SHOULD NOT COUNT. It's too easy, especially with the electronic ones, to trick the results.

People should count paper ballots at the precinct level. People representing all parties or all candidates. In open rooms, with as many observers as desired. They should post the results in big letters at the precinct.

This is too important, and the computer experts say it is too difficult a problem, to rely only on the electronic machines alone.

I wouldn't trust the federal government right now to tie my shoes if I was watching. Nor do I trust corporations, especially ones with murky ownership (like ES&S) or that give big donations to one party (Diebold).

I trust my neighbors in my precinct. If a diverse selection of my neighbors count the votes by hand (like they do in rural Maine and are finished in TWO HOURS after the close of the polls), I would be most happy.