Conclusion

There has been an enclosure of transparency surrounding voting technology in the United States with recent efforts to halt the enclosure by increasing access to source code. It is clear that some source code access is needed to support accountability and oversight of voting systems. There are risks associated with public disclosure of source code and more substantial risks associated with mandated disclosure. The regulatory, financial, organizational and perceptional barriers to the entry of open source voting system software combine such that the open source business models that are now thriving in other sectors don't easily translate to the voting systems market.

We conclude that disclosure of full system source code to qualified individuals will promote technical improvements in voting systems, while limiting some of the potential risks associated with full public disclosure. Considering the alternatives to blanket disclosure mentioned in §, such as increased access to the Federal process, incentives, collaborative models and technological solutions, we still have not explored all our options. Acknowledging that limited source code disclosure to experts does not support general public scrutiny of source code, and therefore does not fully promote the transparency goals of public oversight and accountability, we note that in a public source code disclosure or open source code model most members of the public will be unable to engage in independent analysis of the source code and will need to rely on independent, hopefully trusted and trustworthy, experts. (Ping says: break up this huge sentence.) Given the potential risks posed by broad public disclosure of election system source code, we conclude that moving incrementally in this area is both a more realistic goal and the prudent course given that it will yield many benefits and greatly minimizes potential risks.