Thanks! Exactly. I only brought this up because Cory Doctorow is using a photo of a San Francisco voting machine from over 10 years ago :-\
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Oh yeah, I can see getting a bit riled up 
Of course, none of us knew that machine from a toaster, so we’d just have naively thought it was a stock photo or something. It’s actually kind of neat to know that it had a home!
Err, even though it’s dead apparently. heh.
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Right, except the San Francisco city seal is on there. Probably few people would notice that I guess…
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We’re Americans! Our super power is obliviousness!
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I could be wrong, but I think the question was more likely targeted at how possible it is for someone on the outside to inspect the source code for issues, rather than to try to use that source code for nefarious reasons.
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Logic and accuracy?
How sure are you that they have been designed using a language which is capable of working with functional verification tools? Because if the program is of more than a certain complexity, or written in any one of a number of languages on any number of operating systems, it can’t be guaranteed.
Testing can only give a probability of accuracy.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I’m not talking about protecting the source code from being viewed by nefarious actors. Exactly the opposite, in fact. If the code is good, being able to see it will not help people subvert it. The point is that if members of the public can’t freely view the source code without jumping through hoops, there’s no reason for us to trust that a) it’s not deliberately doing something bad or b)it’s not vulnerable to being subverted.
You seem very sure that these machines are safe, and my point is that the indelible paper trail is only half of what is necessary to convince me of that. The other half is that I, or anyone else, should be able to freely inspect the source code, including the code that runs a checksum to make sure that that source is actually what is being run on the machine. Secret proprietary code has no place on voting machines, period.
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