Hi 76 / Lo 58
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Volume 72, Issue 52,
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
News Concerns raised over e-ballots System crashes, lost votes and hacking stirs up debate over voting machine reliability by CHELSEA ADAMS
Concern about the use of electronic voting machines is increasing as congressional races tighten across the country. A number of reported inconsistencies, including one in the Washington Post last week about glitches causing part of some candidates' names and party affiliations to be chopped off the electronic ballot in Virginia, have added to critics' skepticism. The three Virginia jurisdictions naming errors are using machines manufactured by Hart InterCivic of Austin -- the same machines voters are using in Harris, Brazoria, Fort Bend and many other Texas counties in the midterm elections. Attention has mainly focused on Diebold Elections Systems after studies conducted by Princeton and Stanford Universities revealed serious vulnerabilities to hackers and viruses. Problems reported in other states involve machines losing votes, failing to register votes, switching votes between competing candidates, counting votes twice and system crashes preventing voters from casting their votes, but weren't limited to Diebold machines. Even before Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which allocated $3.86 billion in federal matching funds to rebuild the nation's voting system and spurred a nationwide movement toward replacing outdated voting machines with electronic systems, Harris County had already purchased the Hart systems. Out of four leading manufacturers of direct-recording-electronic machines certified for purchase in Texas -- Diebold Elections Systems, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Election Systems and Services -- a local taskforce arranged by Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufmann voted for the Hart system, giving it 25 first-places out of 32 ballots cast. Hart was preferred because it's not a touch screen, their bid included $250,000 for outreach services and it's manufactured locally, allowing the government to put money back into the local economy and provide jobs. Hart also makes printers to produce paper audit trails if results are questionable, but Texas' secretary of state has not certified them. Kaufmann believes a well-funded and orchestrated public relations campaign by organizations such as Black Box Voting and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream persuaded some states to adopt paper trails or "PV paths." She says paper would be a hassle and isn't worried about hacking. "I think the likelihood of somebody hacking into a machine at an individual precinct is pretty far fetched," Kaufmann said. Peter Vogel, a Dallas attorney who specializes in intellectual property and electronic data, served for 13 years as an electronic systems analyst for the Secretary of State. Vogel has seen many different systems over the years and says there are irregularities in all elections, whether it is mistakes by elections officials, mistakes by voters or by people intentionally trying to change votes. "So, a combination of all those different things at play at the same time becomes very perplexing to figure out," said Vogel. Vogel believes paper ballots are best, however, because they are electronically scanned in, similar to Scantron exams, and can be rescanned if necessary. According to Vogel, direct-recording electronic machines won't allow replication of votes because they are stored electronically as a total. Approximately 80 percent of all ballots cast Nov. 7 in the country will be cast or tabulated by computer, and an estimated 40 percent of voters will use touch-screen machines, the Houston Chronicle reported. Send comments to dcnews@mail.uh.edu |
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