E-voting security: The electoral dialectic gets hot

Peter Neumann, principal scientist at the SRI International Computer Science Laboratory, has been warning about electronic voting systems' insecurity for several years. Neumann is still at it, and still alarmed. "I've been fighting this battle for 20 years. What's new?" he asks. The question is now rhetorical, for this past December has seen an explosion of public activity around the issue. Neumann's wilderness is now jam-packed with a cacophony of voices. However, the looming question is whether the activity signals a willingness to build consensus around a commonly accepted e-voting security apparatus, or is, instead, the preparation for a competing stakeholders' titanic clash in the billion-dollar-plus market of e-voting systems.