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1. Name: David Mertz, Ph.D.  
2. Title: Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, Open Voting Consortium

3. Voting Machines
Position:		 Con to the question "Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process?"
4. Reasoning:

"There are several areas of concern regarding the new generation of computerized voting machines, including no means for the voter to verify that his/her votes have been tallied; no means outside of the memories of the voting machines themselves to audit or recount the votes; lack of ability to audit the quality of the software...; [and] vulnerability of the machines or of their supporting infrastructures to intentional attack or inadvertent errors." ("A PC-Based Open-Source Voting Machine with an Accessible Voter-Verifiable Paper Ballot," paper presented at USENIX '05 professional conference, April 2005)

5. Credibility
Ranking:		  Experts
Election officials, people with post-graduate degrees in a computer science, J.D.s, Members of Congress, or elected officials with significant involvement in, or related to, electronic voting machine issues

6. Involvement:
  • Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, Open Voting Consortium
  • 1999-current - Software Consultant/Developer, Gnosis Software
  • Member, Electronic Voting Machine Project (EVM2003)
7. Education:
  • Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1999
  • M.A., Philosophy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1991
  • B.A., Philosophy with Minor in Mathematics, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1987
8. Relevant Affiliations/Honors:
  • 1989-1990 - Graduate School Fellowship, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  • 1988-1989 - Puryear Fellowship, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
9. Contact Info:
Phone: (413) 863-4552 Fax: None listed
E-Mail: mertz@gnosis.cx
Web Site: http://gnosis.cx/publish/
10. Other: Select publications include:
  • "Privacy Issues in an Electronic Voting Machine," A.M. Keller, D. Mertz, J.L. Hall, and A. Urken, chapter in Privacy and Technologies of Identity: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation, Strandburg and Raicu, eds., 2006
  • "A Deeper Look: Rebutting Shamos on e-Voting," R.E. Crane, A.M. Keller, E. Cherlin, and D. Mertz, available on his website, 2005
  • "A PC-Based Open-Source Voting Machine with an Accessible Voter-Verifiable Paper Ballot," presented at the professional conference USENIX '05, April 2005
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