Speakout: Electronic voting is safe and reliable

By Faye Griffin and Susan Miller, Rocky Mountain News  October 8, 2004

The first voting machine was used in Rochester, N.Y., in 1892, and by 1930, residents of most of the major cities voted on mechanical machines. Then in the 1980s, computer technology was combined with the voting machine and the direct-record voting machine was born.

Several Colorado counties are today successfully using direct-record machines. The machines have replaced punch cards, lever machines and optical scan voting, providing convenience for voters and allowing election officials to tally election results in a precise manner.

  
Direct-record machines might look different from vendor to vendor, but the idea is the same. The voter presses the screen or a button next to his or her choice with either a finger or a voting tool and the vote is set. Once the voter has made all of his or her choices, the ballot is cast.

Some people have expressed concern about the security of the devices. Each machine stands alone and is not connected to any network source. The source code is proprietary and not available to the public. To tamper with the hardware, the voter would have to disassemble the machine in front of the election judges. Any sabotage would affect one machine only so the voter would have to go from machine to machine to make a large impact on the election.

There are methods of testing the machines that allow the election officials to make certain that the tabulating program is working and that the votes are being counted correctly. The accuracy of the system is assured by citizen election representatives who vote "test ballots" and run them through the tabulating process in full view of witnesses. The test votes must be tabulated correctly before the actual election votes are counted.

The only way for voter fraud to occur is for the judge to let a voter vote more than once. The voter sign-in and pollbook entry procedures make this virtually impossible. Colorado election law requires there be at least three election judges of different affiliations at each polling place. Some counties use four or more, especially for the large elections. For an election judge to commit fraud requires him or her to persuade fellow judges to also break the law.

Using a direct-record voting machine provides reassurance for the voters, personally, as well. They don't have to worry about election officials misinterpreting "voter intent" - the vote is cast for their choices. There are no hanging chad problems to consider, no overvotes to contend with nor any voter messages to decipher. The vote is the vote - pure and simple.

People wonder about whether the votes are not going to be lost if the machine breaks down or the polling place loses power. There is no danger of electors voting ballots only to find out later that a computer glitch prevents them from being tabulated. If one part of the machine goes down, there is at least one, if not more, way for the votes to be tabulated.

When the voter completes casting the ballot, there's one last safeguard, one last way that the voter can be assured that his or her vote will be tabulated correctly. The machines provide a "review screen" so the voter can take one last look at the ballot before actually casting the vote. The voter can easily make any changes at that time. Once he or she is satisfied that the ballot reflects the correct choices, the ballot is cast and the vote is recorded. There is no way that the voter can skip the review screen because the device requires that the review screen is the only way the voter can get to the point that the ballot can be cast.

By the end of election night, each machine (or in some cases each polling place) has a cartridge with the votes cast on it. The election judges bring it back to the -off sites for collection by the county officials. If the cartridges have been tampered with, the tabulating machine will not be able to read it. Since there are other storage areas in the machines, the officials can go back and recollect the votes for tabulation if necessary. The votes stay in the machines until they are purposely cleared after the election by trained election staff.

In all, direct-record voting machines are a safe and accurate way for the voters to make their voices heard. They provide a clear and easy way of voting where citizens can be assured that their votes are being counted correctly. The election departments and election commissions adhere to state voting security regulations and voting procedures. Your vote is guarded from the moment you cast your ballot to the last counting procedure.

We wouldn't have it any other way.

Faye Griffin is Jefferson County Clerk. Susan Miller is Jefferson County elections director.