EFF's Action Center gives you a quick way to send your House Rep a fax or email letting them know that you want to cast your votes using an open system, not a blackbox that could be riddled with bugs and security holes. On the EFF site there is more information about the issue. Included is a link to a paper by some folks at Johns Hopkins and Rice who review the Diebold system that was used in Georgia state wide elections in 2002, and is getting more and more business since the last Presidential election. Diebold's source code was obtained and posted to the net by a hacker who exploited a vulnerability in a webserver (any guesses) and gained access to their corporate "intranet".
Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We highlight several issues including unauthorized priveledge escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal.
I like the idea of voting electronically...but if we're going to do it, let's do it right.
