Computerized Voting Machines Vulnerable to Tampering

Huge amorphous stories tend to wend their way into the mainstream press slowly, if at all. This one is no exception. The core of the story is straightforward: new computerized voting machines are vulnerable to tampering. The details and the implications become much more murky and complex: Who owns the companies that manufacture the voting machines? What are the technical issues involved? What does the law say? How can ordinary citizens best assert their rights to have their votes counted fairly and accurately? A few vigilant souls have been asking these questions; thankfully, the mainstream press is beginning to notice.

We all remember the fiasco of the 2000 election, when the voting system in Florida went off the rails and introduced the term "hanging chad" into the lexicon of American politics. What that election seemed to illustrate was the wretched inadequacy of manual voting machines, both in the Sunshine State and elsewhere. Commentators, politicians, and election officials amplified their calls for a reliable way of recording the will of the people. Computerized voting machines - of the "touch-screen" species, primarily - assumed front-runner status.

But the idea that computerized voting machines are infallible, or incorruptible, holds about as much water as a bamboo sieve. The essential problem is that only a handful of people - programmers, technicians, and perhaps their bosses - really know what's going on inside the black box. In a letter to the House Committee on Science, dated May 29, 2001, Barbara Simons and Eugene Spafford of the unimpeachable Association for Computing Machinery spelled out the implications: "Vulnerabilities exist that threaten confidentiality, integrity and authenticity if such systems were utilized for voting. As a result, such vulnerabilities might allow significant instances of fraud, abuse or accident that could subvert fair voting." Other credible organizations, including the National Science Foundation's "E-voting Workshop" have reached similar conclusions. (Also check out the ground-breaking work of Bev Harris, a progressive author and publicist, on Talion.com and BlackBoxVoting.com).

The vulnerabilities are multiple. First, while one might assume that an actual human being at least double-checks electronically recorded votes, in fact all such data resides entirely within the machine. That means that the machine's software is in total control. Moreover, the software code itself is considered proprietary information and therefore exempt from outside review. Finally, there's no paper trail - or "audit" - to provide voters or election officials with an independent record of votes cast.

Compounding these vulnerabilities is the fact that electronic results will be harder to check against exit poll data, given the fact that the television networks have discontinued their use of Voter News Service, which until 2002 had provided them with that information. (On the gruesome demise of VNS, see Larry Barrett's article in the January 13, 2003, edition of Baseline magazine).

So has any evidence of hanky-panky come to light? Hard to say. The story that's getting the most attention right now involves the business relationship between Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Election Systems & Software, the largest voting machine company in the U.S. According to The Hill, a D.C. paper covering national politics, Hagel has financial connections both to ES&S and its parent company, The McCarthy Group, and there are questions as to whether he fully disclosed that information to the FEC. The questions were sufficiently serious to prompt Charlie Matulka, Hagel's opponent in the 2002 election, to ask Nebraska election officials whether a conflict of interest existed, and after the election, to request a recount - evidently to no avail. (An organization called WhoseFlorida has provided a detailed report on the whole imbroglio. Also worth reading is Thom Hartmann's article in the "Common Dreams News Center," a progressive website).

It's hard to know whether the Hagel case involves anything more than coincidence and the appearance of something fishy - but that merely illustrates the point. The lack of transparency surrounding the entire process makes it difficult to reach firm conclusions. Certainly, it points up the necessity of cutting through the obscure corporate-political connections when it comes to voting, the defining right of any democracy.

At least one case has resulted in conviction. Centered in Pinellas County, Florida, it's a byzantine affair, involving allegations of kick-backs, conspiracies, well-connected lobbyists, and shocked county commissioners. The details defy adequate treatment here, but you can read a St. Petersburg Times article and the final plea agreement for more information. Again, however, the central issue has to do with the sticky-fingers role of private companies in the election process.

Fortunately, momentum is building for a comprehensive approach to the problems raised by paperless electronic voting. On Feb. 6, 2003, the California Secretary of State announced the creation of a task force to study the issue. In conjunction with heightened awareness in other states, this will hopefully spur a wide-ranging reform of voting procedures.

The essential need is for transparency and accountability. To achieve that, the Commonweal Institute supports a number of recommendations:

1) Voting machines should provide voters with printed confirmation of their votes at the time of voting. This "audit trail" would ensure voters that their votes were properly cast, and would provide evidence of voter intent in the case of a recount.

2) The software code and hardware specifications of voting machines should be subject to independent outside review. The law must reflect the priority of democratic process over corporate proprietary information.

3) The government and private sector should cooperate in standardizing the procedures and criteria of voting technology. A county-by-county, state-by-state patchwork of standards is inadequate to the task and would undermine public confidence in elections.

4) Optical scanning is the most promising current technology and should be pursued aggressively. The CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project reports that optical scanning is the most reliable form of equipment, and that switching over nationally would cost about $2 per voter, or $200 million, per year (over a 15 to 20 year span).

In the meantime, there's stuff you can do to help. Most importantly, make noise. Contact your local election officials - probably the county board of commissioners or supervisors - and request information about the voting machines being used (or contemplated) in your district. Find out the political and corporate affiliations of the major shareholders and executives at the companies that make electronic voting machines. (Lynn Landes has compiled detailed financial and managerial information on the major vote-machine manufacturers.) Write to the secretary of state for your state, and to your Congressional representatives, and bring the issue to their attention.

The election of 2004 will be upon us before we know it. Let's do all we can to make sure it's run by the people, not the programmers.

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