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No-confidence
vote earned by machines
By BOB BARR
Published on: 08/30/06
I
hate to admit it, but Cynthia McKinney may be on to
something.
McKinney
's post-election diatribe against her usual litany of
enemies aside, her broadside against electronic voting
machines may have some merit. Not in terms of her
election loss, I hasten to add.
There
has been not a shred of evidence that her 17-point
loss to Hank Johnson was the result of anything other
than weariness of her antics by voters. But questions
raised about electronic voting machines have become
sufficiently widespread and credible as to warrant
serious study and action by
Georgia
and other states.
The
pell-mell rush to electronic voting machines was
launched after the 2000 presidential election debacle
in
Florida
. It was fueled by Congress' knee-jerk reaction to
that fiasco in passing the "Help America Vote
Act" in 2002, along with a boatload of taxpayer
dollars — nearly $4 billion.
Unfortunately,
this well-funded fascination with electronic voting
machines has proceeded with virtually no comprehensive
study or development of national standards to ensure
the integrity of the machines and how they are
utilized. Each state sets its own standards — or
doesn't — and follows its own rules in letting
contracts for the machines.
Most
states, including
Georgia
, have opted for machines that provide no paper trail.
Other, more costly machines produce a
"voter-verified paper trail" that records a
voter's choices in electronic form with the machine's
computer(s) and contemporaneously on paper, thus
allowing for audits. Regardless of which type of
electronic voting machine a state chooses, however,
experts agree that all have serious potential
problems. They are susceptible to hacking, especially
those with wireless components.
A
recent, 150-page report by the nonpartisan Brennan
Center for Justice at New York University Law School
concluded that because there are no comprehensive
standards for electronic voting machines, and given
the demonstrated potential problems inherent in such
devices, all states ought to take certain steps to
enhance security and minimize opportunity for fraud ,
including:
•Automatic
and routine audits, with voter-verified paper records,
in every election.
•Random
selection of voting machines on election days for
testing and examination for possible software attacks
or viruses.
•Banning
of wireless components in all voting machines.
Even
though there have been no serious breaches of
electronic voting machine operations in
Georgia
— or at least none we know about — there have been
in other states.
In
Ohio
, for example, a study of voting machine
irregularities conducted by the Election Science
Institute resulted in a report highly critical of the
Diebold machines used in that state. According to the
report, the paper records from many machines were
missing, destroyed or unreadable. ESI also found that
in numerous instances, the paper records did not match
the electronic records. While Diebold, the nation's
largest supplier of touch-screen voting machines,
understandably has taken strong exception to the ESI
report, the problems this study and others recount
clearly call for more than a knee-jerk defense.
Lawsuits
attacking various aspects of electronic voting are
pending in a number of states, including
Georgia
. Election officials in at least two states —
California and Pennsylvania — reportedly have issued
warnings to local election supervisors about possible
problems in the software used in Diebold touch-screen
voting machines. A recent CNN report revealed that
electronic voting machine "motherboards" —
a virtual road map for potential hackers — were for
sale on eBay and that voting machines could be
tampered with by opening the machine with a household
screwdriver. Such tampering would likely go undetected
because the machines (which apparently are used in
Georgia
) have no tamper seals.
The
problems — real and potential — are serious and
need to be addressed.
McKinney
's vitriol aside, lack of confidence in our voting
system is a cancer that eats at the very fabric of our
democracy.
Georgia
's General Assembly, with the support of the governor
and secretary of state, should not dally in taking
steps to rebuild that slipping confidence.
Outlawing
wireless components in voting machines, requiring
tamper seals on all machines, mandating the use of
voter-verified paper records and requiring auditing
procedures would not be overly expensive; particularly
when balanced against the confidence they would build.
•Former
congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob
Barr practices law in
Atlanta
. Web site: bobbarr.org.
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