Worrying About Election Day

 Opinion by Pimm Fox

SEPTEMBER 27, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - U.S. elections tend to confound most foreigners. They find it strange that our politicians crisscross the country, kiss babies and eat apple pie, all while donning a wide variety of headgear.

But of course, what they truly can't understand is how we have managed to screw up the actual voting process.

We can't even seem to count correctly. How is it possible that a nation that is able to debate the role of Moore's Law, demand overnight delivery of books and CDs ordered online and simulate nuclear blasts with a computer can't produce a tamperproof system to count votes?

Paper ballots were in widespread use until the 1890s, when the mechanical-lever system started to come into service. The machines, widely adopted in the 1930s, were supposed to be accurate and provide privacy, with voters making their ions behind a curtain. When the lever was moved, the vote was recorded and tallied.

But it was soon discovered that the counting of votes was subject to fraud. Thereby hangs the tale of the chad. Punch-card systems were introduced to prevent fraud and make the count more accurate. But the 2000 presidential vote produced so many disputes, particularly in Florida, that Congress decided to spend about $4 billion to upgrade voting systems.

Passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 was supposed to usher in an era of secure, reliable, computer-based vote tallying. The direct-recording electronic systems were to replace punch cards, optical scanner ballots and hand-counted paper ballots.

Well, it is sad to say that with the election just five weeks away, about one-third of the 150 million registered voters will be using machines that are still basically in beta mode, and that most of the money that was supposed to go to building and testing the machines hasn't been spent.

In California, the certification of the electronic voting machines has flip-flopped twice. They are going to be available, but voters who prefer to use a paper ballot can still do so.

In Maryland, the new electronic machines made by Diebold Election Systems use a Microsoft operating system, and security flaws were found when an independent lab tested the machines. The issue of voter fraud is such a big deal that both the Democrats and the Republicans have lined up teams of lawyers to challenge the vote counts in close elections.

In Nevada, the electronic touch-screen system from Sequoia Voting Systems also produces a paper record that can be checked. But other states, such as Kentucky, Delaware and Tennessee, received a failing grade from the Free Congress Foundation on their ability to accurately rely on electronic vote processing. New Mexico got a D-minus, and if that gives you the shakes, Florida snagged an F-plus. Ohio's system was so flawed that the secretary of state stopped an upgrade from the good old punch-card system because of security concerns.

In 2003, the six largest electronic voting machine vendors Advanced Voting Solutions, Diebold, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia and UniLect formed the Election Technology Council.

But according to a report on the nonpartisan Web site Electionline.org, produced by the Election Reform Information Project and devoted to providing information about voter reform in the U.S., the group hasn't really done all that much except issue press releases. And, says Electionline.org, the links between the vendors, political parties and state election officials are both financial and personal.

Clearly, there is a lot of work yet to be done.