A thorny issue indeed...at least as thorny as any other security issue. It reminds me of the question I point of view I often witness from less-technical friends about the relative security of the Internet when they are making purchases. The implication they make is that purchasing on the 'net is less secure somehow--that their c.c. informaiton could end up in the hands of some shadowy cyber-person. This is usually about the time they are paying for their lunch with their ATM card, handing it to the server who takes it out of their sight and can see the full number, the signature and the CVS code (three numbers on back of card used for security), all of which would be encrypted if the transaction were over the Internet through any respectable site.
The moral of the story might be: just because we're familiar with the transaction model being used, doesn't mean it's the most secure one to use today.
Link: Slashdot | Open Source Electronic Voting Progress Limited.
"People debate the merits of e-voting for a variety of reasons, including suspicion of new technologies and a general distrust of politics, according to Jamie McKown, Wiggins professor of government and polity at the College of the Atlantic. 'Reports on e-voting security often de-contextualize the history of voter fraud in this country, as if boxes were somehow assumed to be better. You constantly hear calls for paper trails, and open and free inspection of voting machine source code. But it's a very thorny issue and one that has a lot of facets,' McKown told LinuxInsider."
