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AnchorDesk

David Coursey
Electronic voting: I'm against it. Here's why

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Friday, Mar. 5, 2003
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Touch-screen voting was introduced in my precinct this week, though I didn't get to use it. In order not to miss any election, I've become what California calls a "permanent absentee voter"--meaning I get my ballot by mail several weeks before every election. Normally, I send it back the same way. But this year I decided instead to turn it in at my local polling station--a neighbor's garage--so I could watch people use the new electronic voting technology.

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THE TOUCH-SCREEN machines weren't causing any problems that I could see, though a few voters expressed some concerns. One of them saw my paper ballot and said that's what she'd like to be using. I asked her why. It wasn't because she wanted to be a permanent absentee voter. Rather, she liked the permanence of a paper ballot.

I agree.

Now, I'll admit that when computerized, even Internet, voting was discussed in the past, I was enamored with the idea. Wouldn't it help more people vote? Wouldn't the counts be nearly instantaneous? Wouldn't greater voter empowerment mean greater real democracy?

Not on your life. As a computer professional, I have one word for anyone who'd like to use any sort of electronic balloting system--at least one that can't be easily audited by hand: Don't do it. Why? Because computers can never be totally trusted, especially for something as seemingly simple (yet critical) as holding an election.

While I'd like to think that someday we'll make computers secure enough for this sacred task, I wouldn't bet our freedom on it. Our times are cynical enough (thank you Vietnam, Watergate, and mass media) without us having to worry that elections are being fixed by computer geeks--and we have no way of noticing it.

YES, THERE HAVE BEEN incidents in the past--even the very recent past--in which non-computer-based voting systems have been questioned, even defrauded. Yet, our basic faith in the electoral system remains intact. But suppose we have an election that becomes so questionable--due to some sort of computer hacking--that it needs to be completely thrown out. How would our electoral process survive that?

Not very well, I'm afraid.

Now, I realize that we're a big country with lots of voters and that we need automation. But we also need a physical record of every vote cast and a system that is transparent enough to convince people that the votes they cast are being accurately recorded.

For that reason, any system that starts with a computer scares me, at least in part because even election officials don't seem to understand what's happening with them. What a surprise it was to officials here in California when Diebold, the electronic voting vendor, swapped out the officially sanctioned code on its voting machines and replaced it with non-approved software--without telling anyone.

I'm not saying Diebold did so with any ill intent. But the episode proves that election officials can't really have faith in the technology that they use. Is this really our software? Or is it software that someone's hacked and we don't know about it?

GIVE ME 300,000 paper ballots, even those read by machine, and I'll be able to tell whether fraud has taken place on a large enough scale to alter an election. Lose that paper trail, though, and we may have no way of knowing.

Computer fraud, as we know, needs only a single disgruntled person who may be sitting half a world away. I don't know about you, but the prospect of some kid in the Philippines deciding who the next lieutenant governor of Texas will be scares me more than the idea of the voters in my native state making the choice themselves. Just a tad more, but more nonetheless.

Those of us who love freedom and know computers realize the first is too important to allow its fate to rest upon the second. Computer- or (worse) Internet-based voting systems are much more of a threat than most people realize and should not be used until the technology is iron-clad secure--which may be never for something this important.

What do you think? Do you trust e-voting systems? Why or why not? TalkBack to me below! 

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