There
must be some indication that the challenge ID number has already been
used.
For some value of
"must".
Is
there any check of the ID for duplicate entries?
No, nor has there ever been. The crux of the
problem is that there is no guarantee that there is not more than one poll book
in the vote center. Say you have two Spyrus units, or
two Jornadas, or a combination thereof -- how does one unit tell the
other that an ID is used? Network them?
This might sound like an academic argument, but
consider that paper poll books are almost always split into different stations
(often by voter's last name). Everyone seems to ohh-and-ahh at
electronic poll books while ignoring this fact.
Bottom line, how are duplicate IDs getting into the
system in the first place? The poll worker mis-types them? That's a
specious argument don't you think? They can mistype the id and have it not
be duplicate, and you'll still won't be able to identify the voter come accept
time.
If its a show-stopper for Brit, we might look into
checking for dups on the ballot station. It won't ever work for the Spyrus
as there is no place to store what has already been used. It would just be
yet another hack for certification though -- it doesn't address the
problem.
Ken
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