From the Trenches of Electronic Voting

Avi Rubin, an expert on electronic voting systems, worked as a judge in two elections in 2004, and he worked the chaotic Maryland primary election yesterday. His blog article about a day spent with Diebold voting machines gives impressions from the trenches of electronic voting. From the article: "The least pleasant part of the day was a nagging concern that something would go terribly wrong, and that we would have no way to recover. I believe that fully electronic systems, such as the precinct we had today, are too fragile. The smallest thing can lead to a disaster... I can't imagine basing the success of an election on something so fragile as these terrible, buggy machines... As far as I'm concerned, the 'tamper tape' does very little in the way of actual security... I hope that we got it right in my precinct, but I know that there is no way to know for sure. We cannot do recounts."

Comments

Re:Re-Count?

[smooth wombat]

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't such a system keep a master table of every vote that was recorded, at what time, on what electronic ballot, what location, and by whom?

You're kidding, right? The whole purpose of our election system is so no one knows how you voted. What you're questioning is the complete opposite of the way things are (supposed to be).

Therefore, in truth, they could in some manner confirm every voters vote with the voter themself?

See above. No, you cannot confirm with a voter how they voted. It's supposed to be a secret.

I know they're not going to do it, but wouldn't that data be available, therefore recounts are possible by confirming each voters vote with the actual voter? Example: The master record says you John Doe voted for Patty Sue, is this correct?

For the third time, NO! We DO NOT record the name of a voter with a vote. All that is recorded is a vote.

However, what Avi is saying is completely correct because even when we are told they can recount the votes cast, there is no way, currently, to verify if the votes were recorded correctly when cast. For all we know there is code somewhere which takes every fourth vote for one candidate and records it for the opposite candidate.

This is why a paper trail is absolutely, positively, 100% needed if we are going to be forced to use electronic voting machines.