http://www.theinquirer.net/

THE BRAZILIAN Electoral Supreme Court announced last Friday that Brazil’s 2008 elections will use 430,000 electronic voting machines running GNU/Linux and open sauce voting applications.

The voting machines will be migrated from VirtuOS and Microsoft Windows CE to GNU/Linux and open sauce software in order to meet legal requirements for security and auditability.

Software experts from political parties will have access to all voting machine software from April through September to search for problems and suggest improvements.

All software loaded onto the machines will be digitally signed to guard against unauthorised modifications, with official authentication verifiable by inspectors at voting places at any time to detect tampering.

Precautions such as blocking all network connectivity will be taken to prevent hacking, and randomly selected machines will be audited by representatives of the Electoral Supreme Court, political parties and external auditors.

When Brazil’s election is over, maybe the US should invite a few Brazilians up north to show North American elections officials how to set up a truly honest, secure, transparent and trustworthy touch screen electronic voting system.