News.com is reporting that the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), an organization of which I am part, has taken the position that electronic voting must have a paper trail. I oppose paper-as-verification due to many of the same issues raised by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). Chief among the reasons is that paper is subject to forgery, tampering and can be mangled. It does not make sense to subject an electronic voting system to the same weaknesses as today’s paper ballot systems.

I regret that ACM has sided with the paper-as-verification activists. As a result I am not renewing my membership this year. I cannot understand this stance esp. since there are many clear-headed voices in the ACM. Interestingly, this month’s issue of the Communications of the ACM (CACM) has a balanced series of technical articles on electronic voting.