Videos Show Trump Allies Handling Georgia Voting Equipment
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Even if the law doesn't say that, shouldn't the government show the source code anyway in this particular case, to prove that voting is fair?
If the government doesn't have anything to hide related to election security, why doesn't it just tackle the conspiracy theories head on, by releasing the information these people were trying to obtain by clandestine means? That way, people can see for themselves whether there's anything nefarious there.
The government trying to keep voting machine source code secret just makes it look like it has something to hide.
Even though I'm... shall we say, normally extremely skeptical about claims that US elections are rigged on a massive scale... the fact that the government doesn't want to open up about what voting machines are actually doing makes me start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, those kinds of claims might not all be just hot air.
I agree that we ought to be using open-source voting software, but regardless, handling the actual hardware is a no-no. One of the most fundamental aspects of security is that all bets are off if somebody can get access to the hardware. Whatever suspicions one may have about the black box become moot once somebody has physically accessed it.
You can't tackle conspiracy theories "head on". Conspiracy theorists exist because the goalposts can be moved indefinitely. If you release the open-source software, they'll assert that the hardware has been tampered with, or that the software was secretly swapped, or that the people who read the results were bribed.
No conspiracy theory has ever been dissuaded by the facts. One especially prominent example among exactly the same people: their demand that Obama release his "long form" birth certificate. He did so, and it moved the needle not one iota.
We can always improve security, and open-sourcing the software is as good a way as any. But it won't change anything about the conspiracy theorists, which will persist unless you let them write the software themselves. And I bet they don't let you look at it.