Suppose that you walk into your local voting precinct this Election Day and encounter not the standard pull-lever-to-register-your-vote voting machine, but a computerized system instead. You touch the screen to cast your vote for the candidate of your choice, get a message saying your vote was recorded, and leave. That night, the local news says that Candidate A won in your town, and won big.
You think back over the last few weeks. That can't be right, you say to yourself. Everyone's been talking about the upcoming election, and a whole lot of people said they were going to vote for Candidate B. Others have this same feeling, and contact the county clerk's office, demanding a recount. The clerk's office reruns the vote count and comes up with the same result. Only then do you learn there is no paper record of people's votes or any other way to verify the election was accurate. With no way to prove otherwise, Candidate A is officially declared to be the winner.
You and a lot of other people go to bed that night positive that the election was stolen right out from under your noses, but there is no way to show it.
Fantasy? Maybe, maybe not. But the potential is certainly there.
Numerous studies have revealed that electronic voting machines are highly vulnerable to hacking and similar manipulation, making it relatively easy for an intruder to rig election results. Independent programmers who have examined the programming code are appalled at the many and obvious security flaws. Standardized setups, insecure physical machinery, and unencrypted data transmissions all make the machines a security nightmare.
Normally, this would not be a major concern, should the manufacturers be on the ball in fixing these issues. But they're not. Companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, which build the machines, have repeatedly refused to make them accessible for independent audits, and they have consistently failed even simple security tests. Leaked internal E-mails from Diebold reveal that the company's own engineers said the system was not sufficiently secure and was rushed into production.
The machines' performance in the 2002 elections leaves much to be desired. Widespread problems included machines which could not boot up, systems which crashed and wiped out vote tallies, machines which recorded votes differently than the way people actually voted, and so on. And yet the machines are being used anyway for the 2004 election, in various states and localities around the country.
(As if all that weren't enough, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, who raised enough money for President Bush to be listed as a "Pioneer" on the campaign web site, sent out a fund-raising letter in 2003 saying he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.")
A relatively simple solution is to have voting machines print out and store a physical paper receipt, visible to the voter and clearly showing the vote that was cast. That way, a paper trail exists for recounts and tally checks, and voters can be satisfied that the machine is recording their votes accurately.
The manufacturers, however, have consistently fought such a solution, claiming it would be unnecessary and too costly. Basically, their attitude is "trust us." Voting without a paper trail, however, calls into question the whole fairness and accuracy of an election, and no price is too high to pay for that. After all, we would never use an ATM that did not provide a paper receipt, so why should we accept it from a voting system?
Fortunately, there is an alternative for voters in electronic-only districts. You can request an absentee paper ballot which physically exists for recounts and verifiability and cannot be vaporized into random electrons.
Meanwhile, having already delivered the 2000 election to his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush has done his partisan part for electoral fairness by fighting independent audits for voting machines on the one hand and telling Republican voters to use absentee ballots on the other. "The new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," says a recently distributed GOP flier. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today." What a surprise.
The very basis of American democracy is the standard that all votes will be counted fairly and accurately. Electronic systems that are insecure, have no paper trail, and have no way to tell that the vote count is real all but wear a sign saying "Steal This Vote." Democracy itself demands something better.
(For more information on the promise and peril of electronic voting, check out the Verified Voting and Black Box Voting web sites.)
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