Elections watchdogs nervous over vulnerable electronic voting

By William E. Gibson
Washington Bureau Chief
Posted August 2 2004

While praying for a landslide, elections officials around the country are bracing for another close presidential election in November that almost certainly would produce contested results in some states still in the midst of reforming their voting systems.

Recent controversies over a purge of voters from the rolls in Florida and data lost, but later found, from the 2002 primary in Miami have revived nationwide angst about the fairness and accuracy of this year's election.

The issue turned into an underlying theme at last week's Democratic National Convention, where speakers kept turning to Florida and its long recount from 2000. The party already has made election reform a major motivation for registering voters and getting them to the polls.

Officials expect controversy mainly because everyone is primed to question the system, and the issue has become entangled in partisan politics. Some independent experts say they fear far worse than slight glitches or legal wrangling.

"The loss of that data in Miami is unfortunate but not surprising," said Avi Rubin, professor of computer science and technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "When you have electronic voting with nothing tangible, the data can disappear. There's a real prospect of widespread problems, such as a power outage. There's a chance we could have a Palm Beach-style disaster on a national scale."

"And that's before you get to the security problem," said Rubin, co-author of a report on one of the voting machines that will be used for the first time at many polling places. His study found vulnerability to various forms of hacking that could rig the returns, leaving no way to recount the votes and verify the results.

"We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election," the Johns Hopkins report said. "Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite any `certification' it could have otherwise received."

Swift conversion

Those who work closely with elections officials are far more confident in the equipment, but acknowledge that the swift conversion could pose problems as voters and poll workers get accustomed to new ways of casting ballots.

Most states have not upgraded their voting equipment because of delays in distributing $3.9 billion under the Help America Vote Act passed by Congress in 2002. Some counties, including many in Florida, have converted to new machines that don't produce a paper trail of votes cast.

About 31 percent of the nation's voters, in counties scattered across 30 states, will be casting votes on electronic equipment, a big increase over the 13 percent of the electorate that used this method in 2000.

"If we don't kill off the technology because of allegations and concerns, we will reduce the number of mistakes that voters make," said Doug Lewis, director of The Election Center, a consultant for state and local elections officials. "This could be a major improvement from 2000, particularly in Florida, where you have aggressively taken action.

"The danger is that whenever you change something all at once, the experience level is not where you'd like it to be."

No election is perfect, and a close election puts a strain on any system, he acknowledged.

"All elections officials have a prayer: `Dear God, please let the winners win big.' All of us are spending time on our knees," Lewis said. "Everybody hopes to run the most boring election in America."

A landslide appears unlikely, however, with polls in Florida and nationwide showing Democratic challenger John Kerry and President Bush running about even. A few votes in any one state could determine the next president.

Florida, where Bush officially won by 537 votes, was not the only close contest in 2000. Democrat Al Gore defeated Bush in New Mexico by only 366 votes, in Iowa by 4,144 votes and in Wisconsin by 5,708 votes.

Partisan divide

The prospect of another close election makes both parties nervous. Republican leaders, while defending election practices in Florida under Gov. Jeb Bush, have discreetly urged their own party members to cast absentee ballots on paper to make sure their votes count.

At the Democratic convention in Boston last week, speaker after speaker referred to the Florida recount of 2000 and urged the state's delegates to campaign hard for a wide victory margin.

"We cannot allow Jeb Bush or anybody else to block our constitutional right to vote," U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the Florida delegation. "Let me tell you, the country's eyes are on Florida."

The Kerry campaign, meanwhile, is gearing up for a rapid response to election problems.

"We're putting in place a team of lawyers who will monitor every facet of the election from the ballots to the machines to any improprieties on Election Day and if we see anything we'll challenge it," said Matthew Miller, a Kerry campaign spokesman.

Even filmmaker Michael Moore, known for the hit Fahrenheit 911, promised to bring his cameras to Florida to keep an eye on the voting on Nov. 2.

"When we say the election [in 2000] was stolen, this isn't just rhetoric, it's not sour grapes," Moore said last week. "These are the facts, and they are irrefutable."

Republican leaders discounted Democratic complaints as so much partisan posturing.

"This has been a continuing refrain for Democrats for the last three years," said Ralph Reed, Southeast regional chairman of the Bush campaign. "It reflects the politics of pessimism that has dominated their campaign. It's not going to be successful. In the end, the voters of Florida want to look to the future, not the past, to solutions, not grievances."

Confidence shaken

Poll results and other signs indicate that the 2000 experience and more recent controversies have shaken the public's trust in the voting system.

A poll of 600 likely Florida voters conducted this month for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Florida Times-Union found that only 45 percent had confidence "in the integrity of the voting system since Florida eliminated paper ballots in favor of voting machines." Some 37 percent were not confident and 18 percent were not sure.

Most Democrats in the poll, 55 percent, said they were either "not very confident" or "not at all confident." Among Republicans, 21 percent lacked confidence.

The poll also found a racial divide. About one-third of whites, 33 percent, said they lacked confidence in the voting system, while two-thirds of African-Americans, 67 percent, had little or no confidence.

In Palm Beach County, ground zero for the ballot controversies of 2000, election reformers are demonstrating in the streets and lobbying the state government to provide a verifiable paper record of votes. They also seek an independent audit of the new machines to ensure their accuracy and resistance to hacking.

"We knew there was a problem, and now it is coming to light," said Sarah "Echo" Steiner, a member of the Palm Beach Coalition for Election Reform. "Because it's a political season, we are seeing candidates jump on the bandwagon, which is great, but I wish it had happened in 2000."

The Florida recount in 2000 led to a flurry of action in Florida and in Congress. But the federal law, which set uniform standards and provided funds for meeting them, was not enacted until 2002, and the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission did not begin distributing funds until this year, much too late for most states to buy and set up new voting equipment.

The federal law is supposed to be implemented in time for the 2008 presidential election. If some reformers get their way and a paper verification system is established, elections officials warn that the cost could grow enormously and recounts could take weeks or even months. That prospect does not discourage reformers.

"The main purpose of an election is not to make the administration easy," said Professor Rubin of Johns Hopkins. "The most important thing is to get the answer right."

Washington correspondent Rafael Lorente contributed to this report.