[E-voting] H.R.811 "To amend the Help America Vote Act etc." passes House Committee & KOA press

[Joseph Kiniry]

Hi all,

There has been some movement on HR 811 this week.

From: House waters down e-voting code disclosure rules
By Timothy B. Lee | Published: May 10, 2007 - 10:39PM CT

   http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-house-waters-down-e- 
voting-code-disclosure-rules.html

> On Tuesday, the House Committee on Administration approved Rush  
> Holt's (D-NJ) e-voting reform bill by a 6-3 vote. The vote broke  
> down along party lines, with the six Democrats supporting the  
> legislation, and the three Republicans opposing it.

and concludes with...

> Regardless of what happens in Congress, the developments in Florida  
> and California make it clear that the tide has turned in the debate  
> over e-voting. Until the 2006 elections, it was widely believed  
> that touchscreen voting was the wave of the future. Critics of  
> computerized voting faced an uphill battle convincing the public of  
> their dangers. Today, touchscreen voting machines are widely seen  
> as buggy and insecure—even anachronistic. It may take a few years  
> to completely phase out touchscreen voting machines, but the debate  
> is increasingly not over whether to phase them out, but when and  
> how to do so.

See
   http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00811:

> H.R.811
> Title: To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a  
> voter-verified permanent paper ballot under title III of such Act,  
> and for other purposes.
> Sponsor: Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] (introduced 2/5/2007)       
> Cosponsors (212)
> Related Bills: S.559
> Latest Major Action: 5/8/2007 House committee/subcommittee actions.  
> Status: Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by Voice Vote.


On a related note, there has been some recent press coverage of our  
scientist activist and consulting work against e-voting and on our  
KOA platform as a foundation for e-voting research.  A more detailed  
article will be forthcoming in the national Irish press in the coming  
weeks.

   Software project aims to erase e-voting fog
   Researchers craft open-source voting software that could be  
foundation
     for future secure systems.
   Jeremy Kirk
   PC World and republished via dozens of venues
   http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130766/article.html

Best,
Joe
---
Joseph Kiniry
School of Computer Science and Informatics
University College Dublin
http://secure.ucd.ie/
http://srg.cs.ucd.ie/