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Success claimed for US e-voting machines
Despite some reported glitches, electronic voting machines appear to have
worked reliably in Tuesday's US presidential election, say experts. Some
observers had feared that flaws in the machines might cause a democratic
meltdown in their first widespread use to elect the nation's leader.
"I expected much worse," said Ted Selker, of the Caltech-MIT Voting
Technology Project (CMVTP) on Wednesday. "Huge improvements have been made."
He is convinced that the widespread use of e-voting machines made Tuesday's
election more accurate than the 2000 election, rather than less. That is
because the machines prevent people from casting a vote for more than one
candidate in the same category, thus voiding their ballot.
The predictions of difficulties were based on four independent studies over
the last 18 months. They identified problems with e-voting machines that
could lead to vote tallies being mistakenly - or deliberately - altered.
However, some concerns were borne out. The Election Protection Coalition,
an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors, reported 1100 voter
complaints related to e-voting machines. The most troubling of these came
from Florida and Texas, where voters reportedly tried to vote for one
candidate using a touchscreen machine, only for the cross to appear in
another candidate's box.
Parallax problem
But these issues were largely dismissed by members of the CMVTP. While
conceding the problems must be addressed in future elections, Selker says
that in Tuesday's election, they appear to have been corrected before it
was too late. He adds that, in any case, the complaints were too few to
have affected the result.
Selker says there is no evidence of fraud and that a vote appearing in the
wrong box is caused by a phenomenon called "parallax", which occurs when a
screen is not angled correctly with respect to the user. The voter touches
what appears to be the correct point on the screen - from their point of
view - but it actually corresponds to an unwanted option.
However, Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US,
says that even if there were no cases of fraud or inaccuracy on Tuesday,
this should not vindicate electronic voting machines.
Rubin, who spearheaded the criticisms of e-voting with a report on
touchscreen machines in July 2003, asserts: "It's like asking a surgeon who
states that a particular medical procedure is risky whether he might change
his opinion because there was one successful operation using that procedure."
Paper trail
Rubin, in his online report of his experience as an election judge in
Maryland on Tuesday, adds: "The biggest threat posed by the current crop of
e-voting machines is a software problem.that affects the outcome.in an
undetectable way. If we continue to use the kind of insecure machines that
were used in this election, it is only a matter of time before someone
exploits them."
To solve this problem, David Dill, a Stanford University computer scientist
who founded the non-profit organisation Verified Voting, advocates
technologies that create a paper trail. This allows votes to be audited
later if necessary. Ohio, California and a handful of other states all
insist that e-voting technology must produce a paper trail by 2005.
But Ted Selker says it is a myth that a paper trail provides extra
security. After observing an election in Nevada where the technology was
first tried out in September, he lists the use of thermal paper, which
blackens easily in sunlight, and printer paper-jams as examples of
obstacles to an effective trail. "Paper verification can reduce security,
not increase it," he claims.
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at:
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