Computerized voting machines shouldn’t be trusted

The 2000 election debacle was the kind of political joyride this country hasn’t had since,… The 2000 election debacle was the kind of political joyride this country hasn’t had since, well, I have to go back to the Teapot Dome scandal. It started small, in Florida, but soon captured the country’s imagination, spreading to the water cooler and the late-night television monologue. Hipsters were having “Intent-of-Voter Parties,” enjoying democracy in the only way they knew how – through irony.

Like most fads, it couldn’t last. Too briefly, that candle was snuffed out, remembered only with nostalgic slang, “Hey, how’s your chad hanging?” The next generation of voters may never experience the thrill of month-long recounts, the drama of legal wrangling and the satisfying release of a landmark Supreme Court ruling.

Because computers are going to fix everything – or will they?

The Help America Vote Act, passed last October, promises $3.9 billion to the states for replacing older voting technology – the punch card-and-lever machines at the heart of the Florida Farce. This is an unprecedented amount of money for voting reform, which most states are devoting to computerized voting machines similar to ATMs. In fact, 37 states have deployed the machines, most made by a company named Diebold.

Think back to the last time your computer crashed. The Diebold machines are basically desktop computers running special software – except when they crash or malfunction, it’s not pirated MP3s that disappear, but votes.

This is the problem with computer voting machines: they don’t work. Not only do they not work, but also, unlike with your home computer, you, as a voter, are not allowed to know they don’t work. You know when Windows devours your philosophy paper; with electronic voting, there’s no indication when the machine fouls up.

How did this happen? After all, our tax dollars are going into Diebold’s pockets to pay for these machines. But the company insists on strict secrecy regarding its voting machines; operating on them without Diebold’s permission is a felony. There’s no way for a voter, or even an election administrator, to confirm that votes are being counted accurately. The only way to check election results is after all the votes have been cast, an essentially useless feature, because if a machine malfunctions or is tampered with, there’s no accurate count to check it against.

Incidentally, a leaked memo from Diebold contains the quote, “If voting could really change things, it would be illegal,” according to the Oct. 14 The Independent, of London. Just so you have an idea of the mindset at the company.

Georgia, which implemented Diebold’s machines enthusiastically, held its mid-term elections last November, as the first state to convert entirely to computerized voting.

The results were suspicious, to say the least. Two fairly close races saw sudden swings of double-digit percentages on Election Day. The Republican Senate candidate scored noticeably higher in the Democrat south, while the Democratic candidate scored remarkably higher in the Republican-held north of the state.

Despite the fuzzy numbers and calls by computer scientists for a secure, accountable system, the head of the Georgia Technology Authority, Larry Singer, who’d brought the machines in, dismissed all criticism as “fear of technology.”

Singer is right, but doesn’t go far enough. The criticism is motivated by fear of technology that doesn’t work, and fear of seeing that technology deployed without any accountability.

Critics of the system are asking for simple things: a verifiable printout of each vote cast, in case of a manual recount, and a system that is secure from tampering. Diebold has refused both, claiming a printout is unfeasible – while thousands of ATM receipts are printed every day by similar machines – and refusing to open its software to public scrutiny.

The company hides behind trade secrecy laws, but when a copy of the software found its way onto the Internet, professional programmers tore it to pieces for its insecurity and poor implementation. One has to wonder if embarrassment might be a factor in their refusal to open the machines.

The electronic voting controversy stands at the nexus of several current social concerns. There’s the specter of 2000; no state wants to be caught with its chad hanging out. There’s the belief that technology is a magical black box into which votes go and democracy comes out – we don’t really need to know how it works!

Most disturbingly, there’s the collision of corporate secrecy with the practice of actual democracy, where openness and accountability are the only ways to ensure the public is served. I hope the people elected with those archaic punch card-and-lever machines remember on which side of the divide they stand.

Jesse Hicks writes with a quill pen by the light of an oil lamp. Your missives may be directed via carrier pigeon to jhicks@pittnews.com.