Paper Trail

The Issue: County's electronic voting system doesn't have paper verification. Our View: This election, we will be voting without a safety net.

Editorial Indiana Courier Press  September 29, 2004

For our grandchildren, and for their children, the future of electronic voting is limitless. Indeed, by the time they are of voting age, even the term "electronic" may be archaic. Future generations will likely be voting from their homes on secured devices unimagined today. But today, we are in the pioneer age of electronic voting. These touch-screen devices we will be using Nov. 2 are the Model-Ts of electronic voting. There is much to learn from experience, much that we do not know. And that's why citizens concerned about the integrity of the voting process worry that the system Vanderburgh County will be using this fall does not provide for a paper trail of the votes cast.

For this election, voters will be flying without a net. People experienced in writing on computers understand the concern. In the early days, and even now, we often make a paper printouts of what we have typed into the computer, just to be sure that when the "enter" button is hit, and the text disappears from the screen, we know we can put our hands on something. That's just in case our file disappears into the black hole of cyberspace. It happens.

Likewise, people still becoming familiar with electronic voting systems are concerned that when they cast their vote, it will not disappear, never to be counted.

They worry as well about voting systems being manipulated by the unscrupulous who would add or subtract votes, with no backup system to verify the truth of the real vote. What people want is printed proof of each ballot cast. But for this election, it appears, not much can be done.

Vanderburgh County's new iVotronic machines and its software have been certified as meeting federal standards for use in the upcoming election. But the county does not now have a paper-trail system. County Clerk Marsha Abell said recently that the machine's manufacturer, Election Systems & Software, is developing a paper-trail system for these touch-screen devices, but that it has not yet been certified.

At the request of a group of citizens concerned about the paper trail, the County Commissioners on Monday passed a resolution, 3-0, supporting the passage of an Indiana law requiring computerized voting systems to provide a paper trail. According to a story by Courier & Press staff writer John Martin, three states have passed such laws, and similar legislation has been introduced in Congress.

State Rep. Dennis Avery, who promised support for a paper-trail law, said that without a printing device on Nov. 2, "we'll have to hope for the best."

And we hope that the Indiana Legislature will give serious consideration to such a law when it meets in January.