What is the U.S. Doing Right with E-Voting?

Apparently I am now an expert on e-voting technology, according to an item in a US magazine. The article is essentially saying that the problem with US electronic voting systems is not the technology, but the complex administration of elections.

"From what I have read, the U.S. systems are primitive compared [with those of] Australia," said Tom Worthington, a visiting fellow at the department of computer science at Australian National University, in Canberra, Australia, and an expert on e-voting technology, in an e-mail exchange with eWEEK. ..."

From: What the U.S. Is Doing Wrong with E-Voting, Lisa Vaas , eWeek, 30 July 2007

The article continues in "Poorly Designed in the USA." and "Is it safe to disclose source code?".

This is the first time I have seen a journalist explicitly state that the interview ws by email, usually they write as if we had spoken. This is a refreshingly honest change.

My comments were about the Australian eVACs system which I used it to vote in the last two local government elections in Canberra. Also I gave evidence to an Australian state parliament inquiry on e-voting and wrote a little about the system Victoria selected.

For a web design course at the Australian National University wrote a little about the system being developed for the next Australian federal election for use by people with disabilities and the military.

Without any direct experience of the US e-voting systems, I have relied on publications, such as "A STUDY OF VOTE VERIFICATION TECHNOLOGY" by University of Maryland in January 2006. The US systems appear primitive compared to Australia. We have the advantage of a single federal electoral authority and no legacy mechanical voting machines.

Unfortunately problems in the USA have given electronic voting a bad name. The UK has also had some problems with Internet voting for local elections. But developing nations, such as India, do not seem to have these problems.

Wikipedia has a good item on e-voting.