A tiny bit of good news on the electronic voting horizon. Barbara Simons, an accomplished computer scientist and e-voting expert, was recently appointed to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Board of Advisers. The EAC is the U.S. Federal body responsible for voting technology standards, among other things. In actuality there are supposed to be 4 positions out of the 37 member board that are supposed to be professionals in the field of science and technology. Only four on?the board sounds a little low to me but at least we are finally getting someone with actual computer knowledge into a position to set standards and perhaps put a little faith back into disillusioned voters. You can count me as one of them as I feel that e-voting as it stands today would be too simple to hack and change the results of an election and no one could ever prove it differently. Of the 37 members 4 are to be selected by the majority and minority leaders in the House and the Senate. Of these 4 members only the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid placed a genuine expert in the field to the board. I take my hat off to Mr Reid, thank you. Hopefully as vacancies pop up they will be replaced by other experts in the field and not just political appointments.