CIS Presents: Electronic Voting

    In 2000, the United States endured a painful and embarrassing election. As a result of electronic voting, counts from many states came back inaccurate and recounts were time consuming and sometimes impossible. I figured the United States had learned its lesson after this embarrassment, however, after attending the CIS Presentation, I stand corrected.

    The first problem pointed out in the CIS presentation was that most electronic voting machines don't supply the voter with a printed receipt, which can cause problems because many people don't know how to use the machine and choose to vote for someone without meaning to. Also, many of the people who volunteer to work at the voting births aren't exactly technologically savvy; if there is a problem with one of the machines and nobody knows how to fix it, it is unusable. In addition to the workers not knowing how to fix the machine if it breaks, it is very common that voters don't even know how to use the machine. Many gen x'ers and baby boomers aren't comfortable with computers; they are used to checking a box with a pencil and paper and when they are confronted with a computer and a keyboard, they get stage fright and don't know what to do.

    In Oakland County, Michigan, a lot of money was invested to improve the electronic voting situation. The Automark, which is supposedly one of the best electronic voting machines, was installed in almost every voting location in attempt to eliminate discrepancies in vote counts. The main advantage of this machine is that it enables disabled people to vote, specifically blind people. However, there have been numerous problems just in testing the machines. There have been paper jams, miscounts, and miscellaneous errors that prevent people from voting. Also, this machine does not give a paper receipt of the vote, which makes it nearly impossible to perform an accurate recount. Just in the first testing period of the Automark, over 100 errors were found; are these machines helping or hurting the voting process?

    Avi Rubin is a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University. He has taken a stand against current electronic voting machines and to prove his point, he has conducted multiple experiments to back his argument. Professor Rubin has concluded that it is possible to render votes to swing a close election. Although he made his findings public, Maryland proceeded to purchase the very same machines that Rubin proved he could rig.

    After learning the facts about the electronic voting world, I am not so sure a repeat of the 2000 election is impossible. I thought we would have ironed out any problems or adopted a new system of voting to avoid further embarrassment, but it is evident, after going to the CIS presentation, that we have not. It is great that we are allowing for less able people to vote, however, there has to be a better way. Problems dealing with technology are inevitable; there will always be glitches, power outages, and errors to question the results of an election. Should we go back to the old school pen and paper approach? I think so.