Comment by Phyllis Huster (Advocacy Group)

Please change this statement from "This document, therefore, serves as a very important, foundational tool for ensuring that the voting systems used in US elections will be secure, reliable, and easier for all voters to use accurately" to "This document, therefore, servers as a very important, foundational tool for ensuring that the voting systems used in US elections will be secure, reliable, capable of independent audits, maintain the voter's chain of custody of the ballot to accurate counting of the vote and easier for elections officials to assure the accuracy of the systems." *** The problem with saying "for all voters to use accurately" implies a voter could make a mistake and use the system inaccurately putting the burden of accuracy on the voter when what we need is a fool proof guaranteed accurate system that ensures the voter's intent is accurately captured by the system. The only way to do this is to make sure the technology and process allow for independent audit of the votes and this is known as requiring a paper ballot at some point in the process to allow a clear non digital way to validate the actual intent of the voter. Electronic voting will never offer such a guarantee as no system is 100% secure. I am a 20 year telecomms person who knows that an electronic vote may be manipulated often without notice, while a paper ballot once marked may never be changed except with obvious stickers or other forms of ballot destruction. It bothers me that the EAC in the first paragraph is putting burden of accuracy on the voter who cannot even get a copy of the Diebold CD which hold the ballots. - Phyllis Huster / Executive Director "Count Paper Ballots" phyllis@countpaperballots.com