Electronic ballots fail to gain vote of confidence

Op-Ed USA Today  12 September 2004
In Nye County, Nev., last week, one of the new, highly touted electronic-voting devices bought to replace discredited old-technology machines malfunctioned. When the polls closed in the state primary election, it refused to display the results, threatening to disenfranchise everyone who'd used it.

Fortunately, there was a backup. For every vote cast electronically, there was a paper trail, a printout that could be manually counted so no one's vote would be lost.

About 30% of the nation will be voting electronically this November, up from 13% in the disputed 2000 election that set off a wave of voting reform. But for the vast majority, there's no way of checking whether the devices worked accurately. Nevada is the only state with paper backup for every machine. For millions of votes cast on most of the 100,000 new devices in other jurisdictions, there will be none.

After the uproar four years ago over punch-card-voting systems, electronic voting was touted as the epitome of Election Day accuracy. In theory, it should be — if the machines function properly, if they're programmed correctly, and if they have not been tampered with by someone trying to fix an election. The federal government promised up to $4 billion to help, and state and municipal officials rushed to replace old systems. But tales of trouble are legion:

·In Bernalillo County, N.M., two years ago, 48,000 voters used new touch-screen devices, but only 36,000 votes were recorded; 12,000 somehow were lost.

·In California's primary last March, poll workers had such trouble starting up the new machines that at least 250 polls opened late; hundreds of voters were turned away.

·In Florida, where the 2000 presidential race was decided by scarcely 500 votes, the South Florida Sun -Sentinel analyzed 350,000 votes cast in this year's primary and found that touch-screen machines failed to record more than 1% of the votes. That would be 60,000 votes in a statewide election.

·In Maryland, two state-sponsored studies found serious security risks in 16,000 new machines purchased by the state.

The electronic-voting-machine industry slip-slides around every story of local voting mishaps, usually blaming human error and poorly trained poll workers. Concerns about the risks of tampering or hacking are waved off as mere speculation.

Because of foot-dragging in Washington, federal standards for new voting technology are not yet available. Manufacturers, for proprietary reasons, resist exposing their software for review. The three companies that certify new voting technologies are shrouded in secrecy and won't say whether they have encountered shoddy workmanship.

All of this has created the potential for further erosion of public confidence in the voting process, particularly if this year's presidential election is a squeaker.

In Nevada, technicians eventually were able to tease the results out of that errant computer cartridge last week. The paper backup wasn't needed. But knowing it was there provided reassurance.

Until federal standards can be put in place, the burden is on the industry — and voting officials — to hold the industry accountable. Paper-trail records are a start. But the risks of a flawed election today are much higher than they should be so long after the problem was exposed.