Dear Senator ,

I am a constituent who cares deeply about security and trust in elections, and I urge you to cosponsor the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (S.1980). As touchscreen voting (e-voting) technology is adopted across America, it's absolutely vital that these new systems meet basic standards of accountability and openness. I am particularly concerned that many systems do not use openly reviewed software and cannot provide a voter verifiable paper audit trail. Unless a paper record is generated by publicly reviewed software, verified by the voter and retained for potential recounts, I believe that this technology is unacceptable for use in our elections.

The public should be allowed to review the software that runs these machines in order to confirm that they act in the way that the manufacturer claims. Right now, however, the leading technologies are not only proprietary, they are covered by trade secret claims. This kind of closed source, or "black box," software lacks sufficient quality assurance. In fact, two recent analyses of one company's software revealed gaping security holes that could be exploited by anyone from a technically proficient insider to an average voter with a few dollars worth of technology in his or her pocket. This underscores how important open source software is for our elections. S.1980 would require voting machines to use publicly reviewed software.

S.1980 would also mandate voter verifiable paper audit trails for all e-voting machines, a prerequisite for accountability and accuracy. The 2000 presidential election was a painful lesson in the failings of current voting technology, but at least there was a back-up system that allowed a manual recount when evidence emerged that the regular voting process was flawed. Without a paper audit trail, a compromised e-voting system could not provide even the cold comfort of Florida's manual recount. Luckily, adding this protection to the machines is not hard and does not have to add a significant amount to the cost of each unit.

S.1980's House companion - H.R.2239 - already has 94 cosponsors. Major newspapers like the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have endorsed the principles that I've mentioned above. As a constituent, I strongly urge you to cosponsor S.1980 and ensure that all new e-voting machines provide a voter-verifiable paper audit trail and use publicly reviewed software. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,