Better news: TGDC decides SI is good, after all

cnet post.

One day after a federal advisory committee rejected a proposal designed to usher in more stringent requirements for electronic voting machines, the same panel has changed course.

On the final day of a public meeting at the National Institute of Standards and Technology outside Washington D.C., the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, which advises the U.S. government on electronic voting machine standards, voted unanimously to begin drafting regulations that would require the "next generation" of voting systems to be "software independent."

Voting machines are considered to be "dependent" on software if an undetected bug or modification in their code can lead to an undetectable change in the election's outcome. Paperless touch-screen voting machines, also known as direct-record electronic machines, typically fall into that category.

Both the original and revised proposals were offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science and electrical engineering professor Ron Rivest, who serves as chairman of a subcommittee focused on voting machine security and transparency.

USACM. Other sources.