Redwood City, CA--With one-time funding available from the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and a national rush toward e-voting, San Mateo County’s Chief Elections Officer and a number of his colleagues are calling on Bruce McPherson, California’s newly appointed Secretary of State to invest a portion of these funds in research and development. 

While state law requires the Secretary to “study” and “report to the Legislature” on open source vote counting software by January 1, 2006 , we believe that that falls short of what is needed at this crucial moment in Election history.  We’re asking California’s Secretary of State to take the lead in America.

We’re asking that his Office apply for federal funds, specifically to invest in a public/private partnership that would “design and build” open source vote counting software.  This will shed a light on electronic voting systems, a light that is desperately needed to restore the public trust in our voting systems.

Congress anticipated that funds would be needed for research and development when they crafted the Help America Vote Act (see Title I, Section 101, (b), (1), (B). And this type of public investment is needed now more than ever.

Having conducted Elections in California for the past 25 years, we can honestly say that there is a growing crisis of confidence in Election results that began after the Florida 2000 Election meltdown and continued through the presidential cycle of 2004.  The level of doubt that exists and the questions that we’re asked reveals that we have a lot of work ahead to restore the public’s trust in Elections.

One way to accomplish this is to bring greater transparency to the vote counting process, and vital to that is having Open Source software that can be audited by the public.  The large voting companies will not develop Open Source software because they are committed to a continuation of business practices that are built on selling proprietary vote counting software.

California should lead the nation and invest a portion of the HAVA monies to create a public-private partnership whose goal would be to develop open-source vote counting software.  This might very well help restore public confidence in Elections and vote counting, reduce the cost for all registrars and move Elections into an era that is highlighted by full disclosure and transparency.

Government has an important leadership role that it can offer at this very moment in time.  Those that manage Elections are making choices for the future of voting in their respective jurisdictions while the design standards for voting devices are changing, the technology is evolving and the public’s trust in Elections continues to erode.  Using a small portion of HAVA resources to strengthen the way we hold Elections in America seems like a prudent investment of time and money.

Precedent exists for this type of model. In 1998, the Australians experienced a very close national Election that exposed weaknesses in their Election system.  To remedy and upgrade their voting system, they sought proposals for an e-voting solution.  Fifteen private proposals were received; one offered an open-source solution.  The open-source option was chosen. A public/private partnership developed between the Australian National University and a private vendor. This joint partnership produced a working system in six months that was secure, functional and transparent.  Because the process was open and transparent, a sense of confidence resulted. 

The public was invited to review, test, and “break” the software, and given the chance to comment and provide helpful feedback to the design team of computer scientists.  That’s what we need today.

California has some of the nation’s top universities, its leading technology companies and access to one time HAVA funds to infuse capital in just such a joint partnership project.  What could be a more important investment than preserving the foundations of our democratic system?

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