Resumen
This article focuses on the auditing of elections. Voting systems must be secured not only against improper actions by voters and election officials, but also against improper actions by programmers, technicians, and system administrators. The integrity of elections is guarded by using two broad classes of defenses. The first involves an array of preventive measures. Obvious examples include the requirement that voters identify themselves and the requirement that ballot boxes be locked and sealed during voting. The second line of defense involves auditing measures that detect error or fraud and, in the best case, allow reconstruction of the correct election totals despite these events. Canvassing an election is an accounting function, where votes, not currency, are the subject of the count. Consequently, election auditing resembles financial auditing. A basic auditing measure that can be applied to any voting technology has been advocated for some time: the maintenance of a record, outside the voting machine, of the turnout, or the number of ballots that should have been issued. As of Election 2000 in the U.S., there were still 12 states that did not require reporting of the turnout, while in many other states, these numbers come out long after the election.