Electronic Voting: Better Elections or Just More Problems?

Four years ago, with hanging chads in the news and the reliability of the U.S. electoral system in question, states and counties quickly embraced a technical solution: electronic voting machines. After all, went the thinking, with computers there should be no messy paper ballots, hanging or pregnant chads, or any of the other problems.

This year counties in 29 states plus the District of Columbia will offer touch-screen voting machines which will tally an estimated 50 million votes, according to the Washington Post. In California, the Los Angeles Times estimates that 30 percent of voters -- 4.5 million voters in 10 counties -- will cast their ballots using e-voting machines.

With the imbroglio of 2000 fresh in voters' minds, however, critics fear that this haste to embrace e-voting will mire another presidential election in ambiguous and contention-filled results. Will this pivotal election be remembered, not for hanging chads, slim margins, and recounts, but for inaccuracies due to computer crashes and data corruption?

The Mechanics of E-Voting

All current e-voting machines, or direct recording electronic ( DRE ) systems, work in similar fashion. Voters make their ballot choices using an input device, such as a touch screen or keypad, and a machine records their votes. Election officials or polling place workers then transfer the voting record to a central database or storage system that tabulates the votes. A few DRE models are equipped with a modem or other data communication device that can transmit the results to the central system.

Some voting machines have an attached printer, which many e-voting experts, most notably computer scientist Rebecca Mercuri, contend is one of the most vital components of an e-voting system. "Fully electronic systems do not provide any way that the voter can truly verify that the ballot cast corresponds to that being recorded, transmitted, or tabulated," according to Mercuri.

With a printer, the machine can document a voter’s selections on slip of paper resembling a cash register receipt, which the voter can then view and check for accuracy. The piece of paper, also known as a voter-verified paper trail ( VVPT ) or voter-verified paper audit trail ( VVPAT ), then goes in to a secure ballot box, used to tally votes in the event that the results from a DRE machine are determined to be flawed.

This November, however, Nevada will be the only state that will use DRE machines that can print VVPTs.

E-Voting Controversy

Critics argue that, though these machines serve an important civic purpose, there is not enough disclosure about how they operate. For one thing, manufacturers -- most notably Diebold -- only allow a handful of company insiders and close partners to scrutinize their source code.

While DRE manufacturers cite intellectual property concerns, critics contend that they should disclose their source code in order to prove they are not creating machines that carry out hidden agendas. Critics are especially troubled by Diebold's secretiveness in light of CEO Walden O'Dell's comment last year that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

More likely than tampering is the possibility of technological malfunction with such complex systems. Over the course of the past two years, there have been a number of well-documented failures during demonstrations, tests, and even in real elections using DRE machines.

A short sampling of these incidents includes power failures rendering machines useless, software glitches miscounting votes or "yes" votes mysteriously morphing in to "no" votes. As recently as October 14, a Florida test failed when power overloads caused a server running vote tabulation software to crash.

And just as machines can fail, so can the humans responsible for maintaining them. A polling place worker who mishandles a machine could accidentally wipe away votes or forget the password needed to access certain administrative functions. As well, voters who are not accustomed to using computers may cast unintended votes.

Another potential scenario: A malicious hacker could manipulate DRE machines, skewing results in favor of a certain candidate or initiative. Though there are no known cases of this kind of activity in an actual election, this is a valid concern according to many experts.

E-voting machine manufacturers contend that their machines are safe. Diebold, in a statement, said that its GEMS machines can't be tampered with. "Any attempt to hack, edit, or otherwise tamper with election results will introduce obvious, well-defined inconsistencies into the system that will be detected by election administrators because the results are ultimately verifiable and auditable via standard operating procedures."Diebold goes on to say in the 20-year history of e-voting, no security breach has ever been recorded.

The company states that a system of "double checks and system backups are designed to detect any attempted tampering."

Voter Advocacy

Avi Rubin isn't out to thwart the vote. This Johns Hopkins University professor and information security authority has become a leading opponent of e-voting machinery that doesn't meet certain standards of accuracy and verifiable results.

He performed his own analysis of the source code on a widely used Diebold AccuVote TS machine and documented his findings in a paper. In it, he cites many design flaws -- including vulnerabilities that could allow a voter to cast unlimited votes -- and recommends the Diebold machine and similar machines not be used in elections.

Rubin strongly believes in the open-source model, which would allow anyone the ability to scrutinize the DRE device source code. He believes that transparency is one of the most important aspects of e-voting and that source code should be freely accessible.

Rubin began testing the Diebold code at the urging of Stanford computer scientist David Dill. Similar to Rubin, Dill opposes the use of DRE machines that are closed to public scrutiny and don't produce VVPTs. Dill's dedication to correcting the flaws of e-voting led him to create a nonprofit advocacy group, Verified Voting. The organization, along with the Verified Voting Foundation, aims to educate voters about the current state of e-voting, propose solutions to the problems, and to encourage voters to take action to promote accurate voting.

Bev Harris, another leading voting activist is working to ensure election integrity in the U.S. by exposing the flaws in e-voting systems. Harris recently gained attention by holding a press conference where she showed a video of a chimpanzee deleting records on Diebold’s GEMS software, which is used to store election results from precincts in a database.

A Safer E-Vote

Exposing flaws in the system isn't meant to incite panic, but to secure e-voting for years to come. The efforts of Harris, Dill, Rubin, and others to educate and provide solutions have made a big impact in the world of e-voting.

For the time being, the paper trail is the one of the most straight-forward proposals to ensure accurate elections. In its September 2004 primary election, Nevada became the first state to hold elections with DRE voting machines that print VVPTs. Later that month, California -- followed by Washington and Illinois -- passed laws requiring that all DRE machines print out a VVPT by the 2006 elections.

VoteHere, an election audit technology manufacturer, has introduced a system that takes VVPTs a step further by using cryptography and other authentication methods to create receipts with which voters can verify their selections.

While paper trails provide a backup should DRE machines fail, they don’t correct the underlying causes of those failures. Specific proposals are in the works to refine the machines so that they're more accurate and easier to use.