Voting and Elections

The security of elections and the ability of citizens to participate in the political process by voting are fundamental to our democracy. However, the history of elections has shown that when there are opportunities for fraud and deception, there will almost certainly be individual and organized efforts to exploit them. Various forms of disenfranchisement and voter intimidation have also long been a feature of elections.

Americans are increasingly putting our election process in the hands of private companies without adequate oversight. As a result, a major basis of our democracy, open and honest elections, is being compromised. Electronic touch-screen voting machines now account for approximately 30 percent of the vote count nationwide and, thanks to Federal funding, many more direct-recording electronic (DRE, mostly touch-screen) voting machines are being installed. Electronic equipment is also used to read optical scan ballots and approximately 80 percent of voting districts use electronic equipment that tallies votes from multiple precincts to produce overall election results for the district.

Although there are desirable aspects of this new technology, most manufacturers have not adequately addressed important security features. According to computer professionals and security experts, central tallying equipment, DRE voting machines, optical scan readers, and other mechanical and electronic vote recording equipment are all susceptible to manipulation and error. Experience to date has indicated that reliability is also an issue with voting equipment; many voters have been disenfranchised by machine failures and problems getting the machines to function properly.

The result is that widespread adoption of electronic voting equipment, of the types most commonly used and with our present election processes, represents a serious threat to election integrity and voter access, and therefore to our democracy as well.

Commonweal Institute is working to raise awareness of the public and our political representatives of the problems posed by electronic touch-screen voting systems and how these might be corrected. There are two steps to address: (1) understanding the issues and (2) taking effective action to bring about change. Here are links for education and action:

  • "2008 Candidates' Awareness of Status of the Election Process", a televised interview of Dr. Katherine Forrest on the Killen Report. Presidential candidates (and their campaign staff) should be concerned not only about appealing to voters and getting out the vote, but also about making sure that the voters who would want to vote for their candidate are (a) able to vote and (b) will have their votes accurately counted. As of March 15, 2007, it looked like the 2008 presidential candidate squad was not on top of the situation.

  • Voting-related organizations and websites

  • Learn about electronic voting and take action – an overview and materials to use in educating others

  • Both Parties Must Protect Integrity of Vote, by Commonweal Institute President Leonard Salle

  • The Silence of the Scams: Psychological Resistance to Facing Election Fraud, by Diane Perlman, Ph.D.

  • Guidelines for Ensuring Fair and Accurate Elections [small PDF file] - recommendations for procedures that can be implemented at the federal, state and/or local level to increase security, transparency, and public confidence in the voting process.

  • Election Problems and Proposed Solutions [small PDF file] - a concise overview of many of the problems with America's election system, with some of the proposed solutions for correcting them.

  • Election Assessment Hearing Report [PDF file] - The Election Assessment Project, a professional effort to evaluate American electoral procedures and recommend improvements, has issued a preliminary report of its June 29, 2005 hearing that draws extensively on Commonweal Institute research and commentary. It offers an array of findings and recommendations, concluding that "left uncorrected, broken election processes can undermine confidence not just in the election processes - they can undermine confidence in the government processes themselves."

  • Manual Recount Procedures [PDF file]

  • On June 20, 2006, the Commonweal Institute endorsed a statement by the nonpartisan California Election Protection Network (CEPN) calling for a full manual count of all ballots from the June 6 primary election in San Diego County, California. Commonweal Institute has been outspoken on the need for election security procedures. The procedures reportedly followed in San Diego, which included having Diebold voting machines kept unsupervised in poll workers' homes prior to the election, make it impossible to have confidence in the outcome of this election without a hand count of the ballots and paper audit trails.

    The full CEPN statement can be viewed at http://www.califelectprotect.net/home.html.

    This evolving story is being covered on election activist Brad Friedman's blog at http://www.bradblog.com/.


Top