I voted this morning. My state isn't one that uses touch-screen electronic voting machines (our ballot is a fill-in-the-bubble type), but there has been much news surrounding the reliability and security of the software that drives these machines. I heard a pundit say that these machines were "written in the robust C language"; I immediately thought "this sounds like a problem for Perl".

So, I began to formulate. We have, in the Monestary, some of the brightest Perl Minds anywhere. We could do a better job on the software than Diebold! So, my challenge to my fellow Monks: design a better, Perl-based voting system.

Most states have the following requirements:

• Secure - meaning tamper-resistant, but also keeps people from viewing each other's votes.
• Stable - this can't go down in an election
• Accessible - everyone must be able to easily understand the interface, and be satisfied that their vote was cast as intended. Keep in mind that there must be access for the disabled, including visually impaired folk.
• Redundant - if a machine does die, its votes must still be counted.

These may not be the only criteria, but they are the minimum for most states (though they are usually expressed more legalistically ;-P ).

So, Monks, how would you use Perl in a voting system?

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