Comment by Mathew Goldstein (General Public)

I am an Information Technology Specialist with experience coding on all platforms from mainframes to desktops and web applications in many languages, including a voted preferential ballot ranking program I wrote in PERL. While the use of complicated software in electronic voting systems has substantial benefits, including promises of future benefits that have not yet been fully realized or fully implemented, it also introduces additional risks of malfunction and of accidental or deliberate corruption of the results that can be difficult to detect or diagnose and impossible to correct after the fact. Accordingly, software independence is an essential requirement to protect the integrity of the election process when counting votes in electronic voting systems.