November 8, 2006

The current turmoil over e-Voting (electronic voting machines) has a lot of political observers scratching their heads. However, DRE (direct recording electronic) voting machines do offer voters a lot of advantages. First, they make it possible for people with reading disabilities to vote independently and privately for the first time in history.

Secondly, experts say that when best practices are observed, DREs can result in even better, more accurate elections.

But when best practices aren't followed, chaos almost always ensues. Overall, about 25 percent of poll workers neglect to show up every Election Day, according to Ted Selker, co-director of the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project.

It's no wonder that the ones who do are overwhelmed and unlikely to notice if someone were to tamper with the DREs.

But exactly what kind of tampering are we talking about? One type of machine features a yellow button that the vendor says it's small (but that others qualify it as big...) on the back of each unit that lets someone vote as often as they like.

Other DREs have wireless components that could be used to spread vote-altering malware on a massive scale! And yet votes on other machines can be manipulated even more because it's easy to access the smart card counting the votes.

But if this is such common knowledge, why is it being allowed to happen in the first place? Doesn't anybody care?

Deforest Soaries, the first chairman of the Elections Assistance Commission, said that most people in power aren't particularly bothered by this issue. After all, it worked for them! "The idea that in a Presidential race a couple of million votes might be lost is not offensive to many people, it's just not," he said.

Congress wanted to give the appearance of reform in the wake of the botched 2000 Presidential election in Florida, but never funded research to ensure what "might" have produced better standards.

"You've got a Congress that isn't convinced that the EAC needs to exist or that its mission is important," he said. Soaries also blasted the states' rights model that allows local jurisdictions to determine their own standards for voting machines.

"We are still functioning as a country on a model that was created in the 18th century," Soaries said. "In the 1800s, blacks could not vote, women could not vote, poor people who didn't own property could not vote. In the 18th century, you couldn't wake up in the morning and vote in Boston and fly to New York and vote in the afternoon and fly to Florida and vote in the evening.

"None of that was true back then, so to hold on passionately to this 18th century states rights model, when today we've got mobility, we've got technology, we've got diversity that we didn't have in the 18th century, is absolute insanity."

Fortunately, however, there is an increasing outcry over the potential for massive fraud -- and better yet, this outcry is coming from both sides of the political aisle.

In Maryland, for instance, Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich is leading the charge for reform, while in California, Democratic candidate for Secretary of State Barbara Bowen has made election reform the cornerstone of her campaign.

This fall, the powerful Republican head of the House Committee on Administration held hearings on the need for a verifiable paper trail.

Soaries noted that reform, if it comes, will be driven by selfish political considerations, not altruism. "There has been no great moral leadership coming from politicians on issues relating to voting," Soaries said.

"But when Democrats thought 18-year olds would vote Democrat, they lowered the voting age. When Republicans thought blacks would vote Republican, they advocated for expanding the franchise to blacks," he said.

Source: Internet News