Anything that relies on secure hardware/software is broken, since those are impossible to assure. The only part that can actually guarantee secure voting is everything that's outside the hardware. Things like cryptographic signatures, hashes, paper trails, whatever. Things that don't rely on the black box you're presented with when you vote to work how you think it works.
Researching that doesn't require a prototype. So why are they building one? As a first step to using a voting system based on it. This isn't 'research', it's propaganda to sell the idea that hardware can be secure. They'll give it to Defcon or whoever, and once they fix all the weaknesses hackers can find, they'll triumphantly declare it's 'secure', and that we can switch to e-voting, and not to worry our pretty little heads about chip/compiler-level backdoors, or if the builders of the system themselves subvert it.
They can state they won't be the implementer of such systems all they like, that doesn't change the intent of this program - to push e-voting reliant on 'secure' hardware.
Researching that doesn't require a prototype. So why are they building one? As a first step to using a voting system based on it. This isn't 'research', it's propaganda to sell the idea that hardware can be secure. They'll give it to Defcon or whoever, and once they fix all the weaknesses hackers can find, they'll triumphantly declare it's 'secure', and that we can switch to e-voting, and not to worry our pretty little heads about chip/compiler-level backdoors, or if the builders of the system themselves subvert it.
They can state they won't be the implementer of such systems all they like, that doesn't change the intent of this program - to push e-voting reliant on 'secure' hardware.