Feds reverse course, approve somewhat better e-voting regulations

We had thought that the whole e-voting thing was wrapped up at the federal level, but apparently everyone (including us) spoke too soon, again. The Technical Guidelines Development Committee apparently has met once more, and now unanimously says that it will start drafting regulations mandating that the "next generation" of voting machines be "software independent." In other words, one that can't be hacked via software. However, old machines that don't meet the new standard will not have to be upgraded or replaced, for whatever reason. "The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) has considered current threats to voting systems and, at this time, finds that security concerns do not warrant replacing deployed voting systems," the resolution said. The committee's new resolution, however, did include language that recommends "usability and accessibility requirements to ensure that all voters can verify the independent voting record," which means we may see some paper trail after all. We're still not sure how well such a confused resolution will hold up once it gets out of committee, but we never understood how DC worked anyway.

[Via Techdirt]