Can America Trust Electronic Voting?

Sacramento Bee ^ | November 23, 2003 | Freddie Oakley and John Oakley

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The recall election allowed California voters to express fundamental dissatisfaction with the status quo. That's democracy in action. But we should not take it for granted.

Coming to light now are serious concerns about the rush to adopt electronic voting systems, and why this may threaten the way our democracy works in the future. The reliability of California's voting systems was seriously questioned during the recall campaign. Some counties were caught in a transition between discredited punch-card ballot systems and new-wave systems that supposedly would put worries about how ballots are counted -- and which ballots are counted -- to rest for good.

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These machines leave no "paper trail," that is, no voter-verifiable record allowing a retrospective audit of the votes recorded as cast for each candidate or ballot proposition. In the words of Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation: "We are all in way over our heads."

Don't all voting systems ultimately require that we just trust the officials who are responsible for conducting them?

[ClintonBeGone]

Don't all voting systems ultimately require that we just trust the officials who are responsible for conducting them?

Yes. So the answer to the headline is a resounding NO!

[Paleo Conservative]

I prefer the optically scanned, but human readable ballots my county uses. The ballots are easily counted when polling places are shut down, but there is a ballot available for recounting by hand if needed. These same systems are also used for mail in asentee and early voting. I don't trust electonic voting.

[Mike4Freedom]

Don't all voting systems ultimately require that we just trust the officials who are responsible for conducting them?

Honest local officials will be powerless against a fraudulently programmed voting machine. In a close election, there is nothing to recount. All they will be able to do is re-examine whatever memory device the vote totals were written to. If the machine were programmed to ignore every tenth Republican (or Democratic) vote, there would be no indication of this of this to find in the recount. Touch screen without a paper output for the voter to see on the spot is useless. There is no doubt that if fraud is easy IT WILL HAPPEN.

[AgThorn]

Coming to light now are serious concerns about the rush to adopt electronic voting systems, and why this may threaten the way our democracy works in the future. The reliability of California's voting systems was seriously questioned during the recall campaign.

Oh Poppycock! As a Californian, the opening argument of this piece makes me not value reading the rest of it since it is obviously missing the forest for the trees with this statement.

The California recall election was only tied to some stupid attempt to halt it by leftists because they found this convenient to try to stop an upset of their hold on the governor's office. Narry a peep out of these same "concerned" folks during Gray Davis's reelection a year earlier.

Electronic voting has nothing to do with accuracy and in many cases may help make it more accurate. There is no reason that electronic votes cannot be auditable just as card votes are. The electronic data should be traceable back to the time, person, party, polling booth, etc. There is no reason that an electronic voting system couldn't also capture a picture, signature, thumb print, breath analyser, etc. if the same leftists that tried to stop the recall election on this issue wouldn't stand in the way.

Face it, voter fraud is a requirement for the Democratic Party to survive. The real culprit is the left NOT wanting any firm verification of id at the ballot box, or at the point of voter registration and their insistance for same day registration in what ever states that are stupid enough to allow it. Just look at Wisconsin for an example of voter fraud .. why? same day registration permission.

[MarkT]

Never trust the pols to design an electronic voting system - there will always be smart crooks willing to scam the system to earn fees from dis-honest pols...it is not worth the risk...a voter should get off his over-weight, lazy ass and go vote in proper person (with material safeguards for those who are out of town/state/country.)

Voting rights should be strictly limited to a person who is at least 35, a property owner, can read, write and speak English and has passed an objective but comprehensive test in American History and also Civics. That last part was a gratuitous opinion on my part - sorry.

[traditional1]

After the infamous "hanging chad" and FLSC attempted election theft of 2000, can electronic voting be less of a reliable means? We don't have Liberals screaming about electonic bingo machines in FL, or video poker and slot machines in Vegas, do we?

I think retinal scanning ID voting machines would REALLY get the Democrats up in the air (let alone, breathalyzers or pulse-checkers).

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Voting rights should be strictly limited to a person who is at least 35, a property owner, can read, write and speak English and has passed an objective but comprehensive test in American History and also Civics.

Mark, would it be a mistake for me to assume that:

1) You are at least 35 years old;
2) You are a property owner;
3) You can read, write and speak English
4) You are confident that you can pass "an objective but comprehensive test" in American History and Civics?

;-)

[null and void]

The man behind the curtain:

Imagine replacing the computer with a man behind the curtain.

The voter goes in to the booth and tells a man behind a curtain what votes he wants. The man behind the curtain assures the voter that his votes have been counted.

Would you trust this system?

No?

Why not?

[tubebender]

Was I dreaming or did I read yesterday that California will now require a paper printout and the machine makers lost their battle for paperless voting???

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Go here:

http://www.verifiedvoting.com/

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Would you trust this system?

I trust most voting systems to work pretty much the way their political designers design them to run. ;-)

[null and void]

Was I dreaming or did I read yesterday that California will now requires a paper printout and the machine makers lost their battle for paperless voting???

Dunno. I missed it if so. Good news if true.

[Paul C. Jesup]

The question is not: Can America Trust Electronic Voting?

The question is: How can we rig it to benifit us and hurt the socialists.

[Semper Paratus]

We did not have a crisis in voting machines unitl the 'rats needed an excuse to gin up enough Gore votes to steal Florida.

[VOA]

Can America Trust Electronic Voting?

If Democrats who play election/voting officials in real life (and on TV) run elections...
the outcomes are always in question.
These incompetents can't run an election no matter if it's a paper mark-it ballot,
punch cards or electronic.

I suspect the more sophisticated (electronic) method will simply confuse them even more
and create even more strife than what we saw in Florida in 2000.

[Dan from Michigan]

I like the 'scantron' ones. Fill in the circle or draw an arrow between the name and circle and put it in the machine. Hardest for fraud.

I hate punchcards(Easy to stuff ballots) and computer/internet voting(hackable). When I was a poll challenger in Pontiac, they used a machine counts. I was there for one of precinct counts. No problem at least there.

The most important thing though to do is to elect honest county, township, and city clerks.

[steve50]

Calif. said paper would be required by the 06 election. Plenty of damage can be done between now and then. As the files hacked from the company show, these things are already corrupted and untrustworthy.

[Dan from Michigan]

Voting rights should be strictly limited to a person who is at least 35,

If that's law, I go to the cartridge box. LOL.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Naah- vote fraud is pretty much the exclusive province of the Democrats, and has been since the rise of the big city "machines" in the latter part of the 19th Century.

I would love for someone to point out to me a Republican voter fraud scheme to rival Tammany Hall, or the Boston or Philadelphia or Chicago operations.

If voter fraud were made impossible, the Democratic Party would lose one-third to one-half of all their elective offices.

Republicans would gain.