According to this press release, several US congressmen are proposing to rectify some of the problems associated with last year’s electronic presidential ballots, including requirements that operating code be open source and machines leave a paper trail:

The Count Every Vote Act of 2005 will provide a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines and ensures access to voter verification for all citizens, including language minority voters, illiterate voters and voters with disabilities. The bill mandates that this ballot be the official ballot for purposes of a recount. The bill sets a uniform standard for provisional ballots so that every qualified voter will know their votes are treated equally, and requires the Federal Election Assistance Commission to issue standards that ensure uniform access to voting machines and trained election personnel in every community. The bill also improves security measures for electronic voting machines.

If electronic voting ever takes off in Australia, these are the kinds of safeguards I’d like to see. To my mind, any additional oversight upon an inherently intangible and untraceable ballot is a Good Thing — whether this Bill passes is another matter altogether, however.