Rebecca Mercuri, a member of the Computer Science faculty
at Bryn Mawr College will be giving two talks on computerized
voting systems at the campus during the last week of March.
The first talk is appropriate for a more general audience, and
the second one is more technical.  There will be only minimal
overlap of material in the two sessions.


Both talks will last about an hour and are open to the public.
Attendees should plan to arrive at least a half-hour early in
order to allow time to walk to the building (from the train
or parking lots).  Directions to the Bryn Mawr campus may be
found at http://www.brynmawr.edu


Talk #1:


"Why Computers Can't Count Votes" will be presented at Noon on
Tuesday, March 27, Room 338, Park Science Center.


   The recent Presidential election has demonstrated major 
   difficulties in the democratic process of counting votes. 
   Proponents of electronic and web-based voting systems are 
   quick to criticize punch cards and lever machines as being 
   slow and antiquated. Yet a recent study by MIT and Caltech
   revealed that the new computer-based systems are inferior
   to older mechanical and manual technologies. Furthermore,
   the newly proposed systems promise to also compromise 
   voter privacy and recount capability, a fact that some 
   vendors and election boards do not want voters to know. 
   This talk will explain these issues and present some of 
   the technical challenges for secure electronic voting. 


Talk #2:


"The Electronic Voting Enigma: Hard Problems in Computer Science"
will be presented at 4:30 on Friday, March 30, Room 338, Park Science
Center. (Reception with the speaker at 4:00 in the Math lounge, 3rd
floor.) 


   Although it might appear that modern technology should
   be able to provide secure, auditable, anonymous elections,
   this turns out to be a difficult problem for computer 
   scientists. Vote collection and tabulation involves processes 
   for system security, program provability, user authentication, 
   and product reliability, all of which harbor inherent flaws.
   These matters are further compounded by sociological and
   legal technicalities -- such as the prevention of vote-selling
   and protection from denial-of-service attacks.  This talk will
   address these subjects from a computer science standpoint, 
   focusing on those which are considered to be "hard" (the
   CS word for "presently unsolvable").  Although these computer
   systems can not achieve all desired election goals, suggestions 
   will be made regarding design enhancements which, if implemented,
   could improve these devices to the point where they are almost
   as good as mechanical lever machines and hand-counted paper 
   ballots.


Rebecca Mercuri has written extensively and provided expert 
testimony and commentary on electronic voting systems for
the last decade. Her Ph.D. thesis from the University of 
Pennsylvania's School of Engineering (defended two weeks
before the November 2000 election) is titled "Electronic 
Vote Tabulation Checks & Balances." Since the election,
she has been quoted heavily by the media (Associated 
Press, Newhouse news service, U.S. News and World Report, 
Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, 
NPR, WJR, WBAI, KYW and WHYY radio, to name but a few). Her sworn 
affidavit regarding the necessity of hand recounted ballots is 
referenced in the U.S. Supreme Court website on the Florida matter.


Further information on electronic voting and Rebecca's many other
activities may be found at http://mainline.brynmawr.edu/~rmercuri