Electronic voting systems flawed, expert says

Associated Press ^ | May 5, 2004

[Dog Gone]

WASHINGTON -- A computer science expert criticized electronic voting systems planned for the November election as highly vulnerable and flawed, saying today a backup paper system is the only short-term solution to avoid another disputed presidential election.

"On a spectrum of terrible to very good, we are sitting at terrible," Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. "Not only have the vendors not implemented security safeguards that are possible, they have not even correctly implemented the ones that are easy."

Other experts said electronic voting offers advantages over paper balloting, including increasing access to the blind and people who do not speak English. They contended that backing up electronic systems with paper ballots could be costly.

"We want systems that are secure but also accessible to people with disabilities," said Stephen Berger, an expert at TEM Consulting, an engineering services consulting firm.

The first public hearing by the commission came as many states consider legislation to require a paper record of every vote cast as a backup to technology they consider potentially faulty or vulnerable to attack.

About 50 million Americans this fall are expected to use the ATM-like voting machines, which states rushed to get to replace paper ballots after Florida's hanging-chad fiasco in 2000. Critics say the touchscreen machines can't be trusted because they don't leave a paper trail.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of Democrat John Kerry, said today, "After what happened in Florida in 2000, making sure that there is a reliable paper trail in place to account for every vote is just common sense."

To help prevent mishaps, the four-member bipartisan panel is expected to issue recommendations to state and local officials, such as urging poll workers to keep a stack of paper ballots available in case electronic machines fail to operate.

"We cannot afford to have a replay of 2000, when voting systems failed to properly record voters' intent ... and when millions of Americans questioned the outcome and legitimacy of the presidential election," said Kay Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters, who was to testify today. "Specific security measures are needed."

Machines in more than half the precincts in California's San Diego County malfunctioned during the March 2 presidential primary, and a lack of paper ballots may have disenfranchised hundreds of voters.

Congress created the commission under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which began distributing $3.9 billion to states to upgrade voting systems after the disputed 2000 election. The panel is charged with ensuring the voting process is sound, although it lacks the power to enforce any standards it sets.

The commission has said it is woefully underfunded, with only $1.2 million of its $10 million budget appropriated, prompting the commission to caution it might not have the resources to immediately forestall widespread voting problems.

Republican chairman DeForest B. Soaries Jr., a former New Jersey secretary of state named by President Bush in December to the commission, has said the panel will need $2 million more this year and the full $10 million in 2005 to fulfill its mission of restoring public faith in electronic voting.

Executives from Diebold Inc., Hart Intercivic Inc., Election Systems & Software Inc., and Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. will speak today, along with California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

[ovrtaxt]

Plenty was said at the time by us regular folks out here. Nobody who means anything, mind you, just regular old AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO VOTE!!!

The politicians ignored us up until now. Floridians were calling talk radio and posting on the internet about this very issue ever since the 2000 election system was scrapped.

Unbeleivably, one of the critics of a paper trail record, (a bureaucrat, of course) actually said that one of the reasons they didn't want a paper trail was that in the event of a close or disputed election, THE RESULTS COULD ACTUALLY BE CHECKED.

IMHO, if everyone got a receipt of their vote, the voters would actually have more control over the process than even a punch card system. The punch cards are collected from the voter, tabulated, and then discarded after a while. With a receipt, the citizens of any particular precinct could run a check on the results to check the politicians. They could be kept indefinitely.

Surely they don't want that.

[dvwjr]

No to the voter receipt idea. The paper validation of the computer vote for a state election offical recount is fine, but I have no desire to let the politicians have access to proof of HOW you voted outside of the voting booth. That would return us to the days when voters had to present "proof" of their vote to some political party functionary in return for services/favors/jobs. The secret ballot is a relatively recent innovation that most folks seem to forget...


dvwjr

[B4Ranch]

Electronic Voting Co. ^

[DBrow]

"IMHO, if everyone got a receipt of their vote, the voters would actually have more control over the process than even a punch card system."

And every union boss or college professor could be assured of the votes of the people under them.

A validated reciept is as good as cash in a corrupt system.

[ovrtaxt]

Good points that I hadn't thought of. So, what's the solution?

The butterfly ballot 'crisis' was a media manufactured hysteria. Punchcards worked just fine, except for the fact that results couls not be easily checked by the voting public.

Ever read "votescam"? Voter fraud in Miami under Janet Reno in the 80's. Freaky book, and still available, I think.

[DBrow]

My solution? Well, I'd use paper ballots, with either X in the box or machine readable dots. A machine count could then be verified manually. Time consuming and not perfect since people do the counting. It requires lots of honest people who are not intimidated into silence if they observe irregularities (which is what all mass fraud operations rely on imho).

The big problem is not technology it is instead corruption.

Currently a boiler room operation can generate a box of bogus ballots with the "correct" votes. Then, a corrupt voting official calls in with the ballot count in a box of real ballots- then they are switched after correcting the count in the bogus box.

Remember in 2000, when an election official got caught with a voting machine and boxes of ballots? That's what was going on.

If an electronic machine had a paper tape backup that was tamper proof then I'd go for it- the tally in the harddrive must match the paper tape. The tape records all keyboard events in a machine and people readable format. But how to make it really tamper proof? The tape must be internal and have multiple locks so one person alone has trouble accessing it. It must be 100%, aerospace grade, reliable, must not jam or skip and must be 100% accurate too. Then if someone demands a recount there is a way to verify what's on the machine memory. AFAIK no system built today does that.

It scares me that Kerry wants to pre-challenge any precinct using electronic voting. If anyone complains the media will jump ugly all over the person who dares to challenge Kerry.