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Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes?

Posted by Zonk on from the e-galitarian dept.

l2718 writes "Two economists have just posted a paper online, showing a small correlation between counties' use of paperless electronic voting systems and voting results in the recent presidential election (after controlling for other factors). They found no evidence for systematic fraud by testing several potential indicators. Rather, the voting method seems to affect the relative turnout of different voter demographies. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the pointer."

2 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is arranging deckchairs on the Titanic by tinrobot · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let me clarify.

    ATM - Receipt.

    Voting machine - voter verified paper ballot.

    This means that, after the voter verifies the ballot, it gets tossed in a box just like any other paper ballot, eliminating any connection to the voter, but providing a paper record should a recount be required.

    Besides, if Diebold cannot provide a proer audit trail for a recount, then maybe we should just go to pure paper ballots and eliminate the technology (and the problem) entirely.

  2. much more compelling evidence to the contrary by some_raisins · · Score: 4, Informative

    I beg to differ...

    A paper came out shortly after the Nov '04 election showing how exit poll data differend from official tallies in Florida, Ohio & Pennsylvania. Exit polls in all 3 states showed a Kerry win. Official results has Bush winning Florida & Ohio, and Kerry winning Pennsylvania by a much smaller margin than exit polling showed. Given the long, accurate-within-a-margin-of-error track record of exit polls, the probability of the exit polls being that wrong in all 3 states is 662,000 to 1.
    http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/ale04090.htm l

    And who decides to not vote just because e-vote machines are in use? The method used to cast my vote at the polling station is the LAST thing on my mind when I go to vote.

    Recently, UniLect had their e-vote machines decertified in Pennsylvania, thanks to the efforts of 1 citizen who coughed up $450 for a re-evaluation of their functionality. The results were pretty embarassing for UniLect, to say the least, and I'm baffled as to how this wasn't discovered BEFORE the election: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001364.htm

    ES&S's explanation for the thousands of extra Bush votes counted by their machines in Franklin County, Ohio in Nov '04 was that the card reader they had hooked up their tabulation laptop was sending the data to the laptop too quickly for the laptop to process it, so some data got dropped. This is either a huge lie, or only demonstrates some magnificent incompetence in ES&S's development team: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001184.htm Either way, they should also have their e-vote machines decertified. Here's to hoping.

    The Miama Herald also reported this week that their ES&S machines counted more votes than voters in Nov '04: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001390.htm

    And the fact that Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc, sent a fundraising letter to Republicans in Ohio in 2003 saying that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" casts doubt on the legitimacy of all reported results from Diebold machines in Ohio in Nov '04.
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m

    I realize that nothing that humans do is perfect, but these e-vote machines used in '04 show a definite trend towards "much less perfect" than in previous elections.