Saket Vora

This column was published in the September 7, 2006 edition of the Technician, the student newspaper of NC State. It provides a general introduction into the controversy surrounding electronic voting. Unfortunately, I was unable to include as many details as I would have liked due to space limitations. Discussion of severe security flaws in the Diebold voting machines and numerous instances of questionable activity around the country regarding electronic voting machines were unable to make an appearance. Still, I thought it was important to get this issue on the radar, particularly because it has relevance to North Carolina.

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In November 2004, in North Carolina’s Carteret County, more than 4,500 votes were lost due to confusion over electronic voting machines. County officials were told that each machine could hold 10,500 votes when they in fact could only store around 3,000 votes. Even though a warning message was displayed on the units after they became full, the machines were still left in operation to be used by unknowing voters. Because no paper trail was printed, these votes were unrecoverable.

This event encapsulates the many difficulties facing election officials at all levels of government. After the infamous “butterfly ballot” scandal that marred the voting in Florida in 2000, the federal government spent millions of dollars aimed at improving voting systems across the country.

A popular system is the optical scan method, which is essentially the “Scantron” technology that most students are familiar with. Another route is the electronic voting machine, using a method known specifically as DRE for direct recording electronic. These are computer-based with a ballot that appears on a touch screen.

DREs offer many advantages over paper ballots. The text size can be easily increased to accommodate voters with poor eyesight, and audio can be included so that seriously visually impaired people with headphones can cast their votes more privately. Multiple confirmation messages can be displayed during the voting process, ensuring that a voter has truly cast their vote for their desired candidate.

Occurrences similar to realizing that you filled in the wrong bubble or punched the wrong hole would dramatically decrease. Electronic voting machines would not be subject to the possibilities of human error or mechanical failures associated with paper-based counting methods, and the vote tallying would be immediate.

Finally, because the ballots are electronic, new or customized ballots can be created and distributed at much less expense to the state or local governments than printing hundreds of thousands of paper ballots customized for different districts.

Sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? A fundamental problem, however, is the belief often held by government officials that new technology can be a cure-all. Decisions concerning electronic voting are more often than not made by people who don’t fully understand the limitations or security vulnerabilities associated with it. Electronic voting is a different beast than traditional voting methods. The necessary changes in election procedures, policies, and training for volunteers are either not implemented, poorly developed, or not embraced by everyone involved.

Take for example the need for a voter-verifiable paper trail. A direct-recording electronic voting machine only stores your vote electronically. If there is a problem with the machine, there is no other way to verify the votes. Voting fairness advocacy groups and the Association for Computing Machinery, a premier professional society for computer science and technology, strongly advise that electronic voting machines produce a verifiable paper trail to be routinely checked against the electronic record to ensure the device is operating properly.

After the voting troubles in Carteret County, passed some of the most stringent legislation on electronic voting in the country. A key provision was that all the system code written or customized for the vote recording program had to be put into escrow and available for review. Diebold, a major manufacturer of electronic voting machines, refused to allow inspections. Despite their violation of state law, the Election Commission last fall certified the machines anyway. After public protests, a filed lawsuit and a judge who refused to protect Diebold from prosecution for violating state law, Diebold decided to pull out of North Carolina.

North Carolina is one of 13 states that mandates the use of voter verifiable paper trails. Nearly half the states, however, have no such requirement, including critical swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. Every state must mandate a paper trail, and have procedures in place that routinely check this paper trail against the electronic vote. Voting center volunteers must be fully trained in the machines and all parties involved must understand the security vulnerabilities.

I disagree with those who want to completely ban electronic voting. It offers too many benefits in improving the voter experience to dismiss it entirely. Remember, technology like this is only as good as the manner in which it is implemented.

Link to Technician website here.