Open government
The Liberty Alliance has called for the government to use open standards when implementing their ID card plan, according to Computer Weekly (although, crazily enough, Australia’s Computer World has more on the subject.)
4. Openness is how New Hampshire government operates. Openness is the best way to justify public confidence in an electronic vote counting machine.
Everything in it should be in the public record. Open source code is not enough. The public record must include all of the software tools used to build the operational software, the complete set of engineering drawings for the machine and all its parts, and its maintenance history. Design approval, too, should be an open process.
New Hampshire’s rule-making process can do that job; it’s open and it provides for extensive public input.
While not every citizen is willing to dig through hundreds of pages of technical documentation, there are plenty of New Hampshire people with the knowledge and motivation to expose any poor thinking, just the same as with any public issue.
Finally, there must be a documented chain of certifications and inspections to make sure that every machine agrees with the approved design.