Guest editorial, News of Delaware County

September 10, 2008

 

BETTER VOTING NOW

 

     Those who favor convenience over democracy in elections deserve to have neither one.  No state or county in the country should be using Direct Recording Electronic voting machines.  A printout from a DRE machine is not an acceptable paper trail.  Having one piece of software attest to the accuracy of another piece of software is not verification.  DRE machines can also be corrupted very easily.

 

     Election officials are usually not computer security experts and most do not fully appreciate the security vulnerability of DRE voting machines.  The number of registered voters who will be electronic voting has fallen from 44 percent in the 2006 election to an estimated 36 percent for this year.  Quite a few electronic machines have been abandoned because of fear of hackers and technical glitches.  While there are encouraging trends, more progress is needed.  People can make mistakes with the paper ballots, but at least an accurate account can be produced.  The General Accounting Office recently reported that electronic voting systems have caused vote miscounts and recommended routine election audits.

 

     All precincts should also be prepared for higher turnout.  114,000 individuals have registered to vote between October 27, 2007, and March 24, 2008, and that is only a beginning.  Polling places must have room for long lines this year and provisional ballots for people who are not properly able to cast a regular ballot.  They must have workers who are thoroughly trained in voting laws as well as operation of whatever machines are provided.  Ballots need to be marked large enough to be seen by those without 20-20 vision. 

 

     In Fairfax, Virginia, one in every hundred votes were subtracted for the candidate who lost.  In Florida, 134 ballots were blank in a one-race election held on DRE voting machines in which the margin of victory was 12 votes.  In North Carolina, problems with software caused 4,438 ballots to be lost and never recovered.

 

     Optical scan machines can be used if they are properly maintained, but rapid results are not the goal we want for our elections.  Accuracy is what concerns all of us who care about the future of our country.  With many close races expected this year, the extra money for ensuring clean elections will be well spent.  After all, it costs a great deal of money to hold an election over again.

 

Ellen Kadransky

Upper Darby, PA