Although e-voting machines still cause concern, in his interview with Good Gear Avi Rubin is cautiously optimistic about the possibility of safe e-voting following this year’s primaries. For example, he points out many states have added a validation system such as paper ballots, and election officials are better educated as to potential problems. Not to mention, voting results do not appear to be wildly skewed, even if they might be imperfect at the margin.

Ideally, Rubin says an electronic system needs certification and validation, and software independence.  Certification and validation encompasses such questions as whether the machine will function correctly under adverse conditions such as in a room with a broken heating or cooling system or if it is dropped.  An example provided by Rubin of software independence:

Let me give you an example of a system that is software-independent. You have a system where voters use a touch screen to make their selections and the touch-screen machine, when they’re done, prints out a paper ballot that they look at and has all the candidate choices that they made. The voter then takes the completed, printed ballot, and they put it into a scanner. The scanner tallies the ballots up and keeps counts of all the votes. Now if the software on that system fails, they wouldn’t get a printed-out ballot that they could then accept and approve.

This compares to the current e-systems in which the votes are tabulated on a magnetic card which is then transferred from the voting machine to another to provide final tallies. So a software error would not necessarily be evident.