http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702030.html
Washington Post
By Timothy J. Ryan
Saturday, September 8, 2007; Page A15
When early jet aircraft crashed, Congress did not mandate
that all planes remain propeller-driven. But this is the kind of reactionary
thinking behind two bills that would require that all voting machines used in
federal elections produce a voter-verifiable paper record. These bills -- the
Ballot Integrity Act (S. 1487), and the Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act (H.R. 811) -- are understandable backlashes to the myriad
problems encountered in the implementation of electronic voting.
Paperless Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines, those
where votes are entered into computers and stored only in computer memory
banks, have encountered numerous failures and no longer inspire public trust.
The response proposed in these Senate and House bills is for all such machines
to produce paper receipts that voters can examine to ensure that their votes
were correctly cast. The goal -- a double-check of the machine tally -- is
worthy. Unfortunately, paper records are no panacea for the shortcomings of machines,
and mandating paper removes the incentive for researchers to develop better
electronic alternatives.
For proponents, the rationale for paper verification is
simple: Voters have no way of knowing that a machine faithfully records their
votes in its memory banks. If a machine were compromised by a hacker, for
instance, its screen could be made to confirm the voter's intention to vote for
"George Washington" while actually registering a vote for
"Benedict Arnold." As such, machines must be made to produce paper
records that voters can examine and election officials can retain. After an
election, the votes in a machine's memory banks could be quickly tabulated, but
they could also be compared with a tally of the paper ballots. Any discrepancy
between the two could be an indication of tampering.
Paper verification looks good on, well, paper, but it is not
the cure-all some of its proponents believe it to be. More than two centuries
of U.S. elections have shown us that paper is at least as susceptible to
chicanery as electronic records. Paper ballots can be modified, counterfeited
or destroyed with relative ease. It is not at all clear that they constitute a
more reliable medium than electronic records.
Have we forgotten the days when ballot boxes could be
discovered floating in nearby rivers shortly after an election?
These are not the only problems with paper records.
Mandatory paper verification would be a disappointment for blind voters, who
could not confirm that their votes were properly cast in the same way that
others' were.
Also, the counting of paper ballots, if required by a close
election, could prove an unwieldy task and take tens of thousands of hours of
work. Further, the printers that produce paper ballots are especially
susceptible to mechanical failure; as many as 20 percent fail on Election Day,
according to Senate testimony this summer by election expert Michael Shamos.
All of these drawbacks and more might be tolerable if a
paper trail were the only way to double-check votes, but it is not. It is not
even the best way.
A system called Prime III, developed by researchers at
Auburn University, would employ a separate electronic "witness" in
each voting booth. The witness, which would operate independently of the DRE
machine, could more efficiently double-check the DRE's tallying of votes while
safeguarding privacy and being more accessible to the disabled.
Another system, Punchscan, designed by a team at the
University of Maryland, offers an exciting array of features: After casting their
ballots, voters can go to a computer and use a receipt to view their individual
ballots online. An exceptionally clever ballot format allows voters to see the
marks they made on their ballots in such a way that they can recognize that the
marks are in fact theirs, while still obscuring their specific candidate
selections, as is necessary to prevent vote-buying. While a simple paper trail
ensures that the voter's choices were accurate at one instant in time, the
Punchscan system goes much further. Voters can confirm not only that their
ballots were cast correctly but also that they were faithfully counted after
the election.
Unfortunately, the language in the Ballot Integrity Act and
the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, the latter of which is
likely to move to the floor before the end of the month, would prohibit the use
of both Prime III and Punchscan -- Prime III because it does not produce a
paper record and Punchscan because the paper record is not preserved by
election officials. Given time and the right market incentives, alternatives
such as these can be developed, perfected and implemented. On the other hand,
mandating a paper record will commit American democracy to an antiquated
alternative for the foreseeable future.
Timothy J. Ryan is a research assistant with the
AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project.
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