Most of the code in electronic voting is owned by the vendors though so by the same standard would we have to open source any 3rd party software the govt aquires?
- currently most electronic voting software is owned by the vendors
- electronic voting should really not be trusted, period, but definitely not be allowed to be closed source
- therefore, we should ban any electronic voting software not made on open source software (arguably even hardware)
- therefore, I am implying vendors of electronic voting software should only be allowed to use a fully open source software stack in their final product
I do not see the jump from this reasoning to any software used by the government must be open source (if I understand you correctly).
The person you're responding to is just making the positive observation that, since electronic voting software is licensed - not produced - by the government, you can't mandate it be open sourced via e.g. a FOIA request.
You are making a normative declaration that it should be open sourced because it's important and intrinsically untrusted software, and as a consequence it either will be or electronic voting won't be possible. These are separate things. You're talking about what ought to be, the other commenter is talking about what (currently) is.
Licensed products are an inevitable loophole to be exploited unless we stipulate rules for use-cases like this. Inevitable because some products will always be licensed, and mandating that everything the government uses must be open source is... well, actually, that sounds great, but even if such a policy were implemented that would be a slow, tough transition to make.