Introduction
Citizen's right to be able to translate their
preferences to seats in the legislature is critical
for the survival and progress of a democratic
regime. This is only possible through a well organized
voting system. The arrangement of a voting system
not only ensures transparency in choosing political
leadership but also point to the proportionate
representation within the legislature. How individuals
cast their votes; how the ballots are counted
and what determines winners all greatly affect
the structure of the government and future political
agendas (Amy 2000, p.1). Formation of a voting
system for a country therefore involves considerations
for various aspects of the society and the political
system as well as its impact on the people.
In a democratic regime especially, this consideration
is even more imperative as the structure of the
voting system and the voting mechanisms reflect
the choice of the people, preference for particular
leader and the people's government. An error in
the assignment of any component or in design within
this system may have serious ramifications on
the foundation of the democracy and the financial
status of the economy. This view is consistent
with those shared by Stephen Ansolabehere (2001).
He opines that voting systems reflect the preferences
of the people's chosen representatives. Failure
in its administration would lead to election fraud,
weakens popular control and government accountability.
He also notes how the public tend to base their
trust in the voting system for tallying with their
expressed preferences.
Sensitivity to voting system is perhaps more dominant
among the Americans due to the fact American voting
history is strewn with vote fraud leading to consistent
rate of innovations in voting devices, methodology
and procedures to curb them. The aim of the government
then and even now is to achieve transparency within
the voting process and not to compromise the political
solidarity of democracy. At the heart of this
voting process is the ballot and how it is delivered
to the officials concerned.
The decision to implement mechanisms and adoption
of certain devices depend on effectiveness, efficiency,
transparency, cost and ease of use, time consumption,
privacy and most importantly fraud proof. History
of voting systems indicates otherwise. Each method
emerged with pitfalls and consequently the government
and its people have to bear the brunt of legal,
economical and social implications. The electronic
voting system is no different.
Given this context the researcher hypothesizes
that, like its predecessors, the electronic voting
system is currently at a developmental stage and
is not trustworthy for measuring vote count.
The following historical background and arguments
will enumerate the fact that the electronic voting
system carries with it ramifications such as faulty
technology, bias electoral results, loss of tax
money, government's expenditure budget and perhaps
more importantly the loss of American faith in
the voting system.
Historical development of ballot
To begin with, paper ballot history indicates
most balloting methods have some form of loopholes
or the other. The history of paper ballots in
the United States could be traced to 17th century
Colonial days when casting votes were a matter
of shouting or show of the hand to denote preference
for a candidate. The unreliability of this method
often led to fraud, repeat votes or over voting
of election candidates.
With the passage of the 12th Amendment during
the 1770s this method was replaced by written
paper ballots that although took longer time for
officials to tally the votes but nevertheless
was verifiable through paper trails. Voters used
to provide a slip of paper with names of the candidates
listed for the different offices such as President,
vice-president, secretary, treasury etc. However,
later organization of parties changed this practice
so that the party themselves provided the ballots
and these paper slips became party tickets.
Voters using party tickets were required to simply
tick the candidate of choice; crossed out the
ones that they do not want to vote for or wrote
in their preferred candidates in the blank spaces
(Wiltenburg 2003; Miller 1995, p. 111). Some of
the drawbacks of using the party tickets were
that it infringed on voter's privacy; it also
negated the Constitutional requirement not to
disclose individual vote and did not successfully
curtail over voting. A change in the paper ballot
came about when the Australian secret ballot was
introduced in 1888 (Jones 2003). Not only the
government intervened in the election process
but had been responsible for the printing of the
ballots on special paper that aimed to curtail
over voting as each voter was assigned one ballot
for one vote.
The shift in the cost of printing and operating
the voting system from the political parties to
the government thus took a historical turn. Despite
the fact that the Australian secret ballot did
not prove to be successful in the United States,
to date it is perhaps the most reliable paper
ballot if properly administered (Jones 2003).
With the emergence of the industrial revolution
mechanical lever machines were introduced and
adopted during the 1890s as vote casting machines.
The lever machines converged the voting process
by combining the casting, recording and counting
of votes into one device. With this invention,
states' election officials that adopted the lever
machines discontinued counting of physical votes
(Brace 2004, p.2). The first lever machine had
been the Myers Automatic Booth introduced in 1892
at Lockport, New York. The lever proved to be
successful in reducing vote fraud like over voting
and stuffed vote boxes even though lever machines
had been costly to the election officials. The
lever machines significantly reduced vote fraud.
Companies like Shoup and AVM (Automatic Voting
Machines) dominated the market and were responsible
for the design of later lever machines that not
were only cost effective but easy to use and store
as well. The issues of paper ballot trails, over
voting and stuffed voting boxes were significantly
reduced. Instead new problems arose in the form
of missed count by the machines or no records
of the vote caste. Though the lever machines continued
to be used in various states even today, the vulnerability
of the machines to tampering and malfunctions
invoke concerns for its validity as a voting system.
To counteract many states resorted to the punch
card system. (Jones 2003).
The change in voting demographics, such as housewives
moving into the workforce and change in officers’
status at the polling precincts encouraged expansion
of polling stations to accommodate the large urban
population. Punch card voting system was introduced
to resolve the expense as well as the population
problem during the 1960s. The punch card machines
were five times cheaper and it allowed election
officials to reduce investment cost in machines.
For bigger counties the punch card system proved
fruitful in resolving their population problem
however, the smaller counties had to resort to
more efficient systems at a lesser cost. (Brace
2004, p.2; Jones 2003).
With the advent of the computers optical scans
and mark sense and electronic voting devices became
common instruments to effective and efficient
voting systems. Smaller countries adopted optical
scan devices during the 1970s to achieve reliability
at lesser price. The optical scan device scanned
bubbles like those in standardized tests and recorded
the votes. The paper ballot, lever machine, optical
scan devices and punch card all aimed at reliability,
cost effectiveness and following the paper trail
tradition yet at the same time reduce ballot counting
time (Brace 2004, p.2; Jones 2003).
However, this scenario changed with the introduction
of the electronic voting system which is the focus
of this paper. Electronic voting device initially
resembled the lever machines with push buttons
replacing the levers set on a panel. These direct
recording equipments or simply DREs looked like
ATMs (auto teller machines) that had keypads for
voters to enter their votes. (Brace 2004, p.2).
The voter simply pushed buttons on the display
choices to enter their preference which is recorded
into the database. Evolution of the DREs changed
its outlook and functions from push buttons to
touchscreen, and more recently to the Internet.
During the 1980s a survey by Election Data Services
noted the two types of electronic systems namely
the Video Voter by Thornber Election Systems and
Votronic by Election Systems and Software were
in use in the two states of California and Illinois.
The percentage of their use accounted for less
than one percent of the registered voters. This
figure changed in the year 2004 when the electronic
systems will be used by 50 million registered
voter’s equivalent to 30 percent of the
registered voter population (Brace 2004, p.2).
The companies for the manufacturing of these DREs
include Diebold Election Systems (AccuVote), Sequoia
Voting Systems (AVC Advantage), Microvote Corp.
(Microvote DRE and MV-464), ES & S (Votronic
and iVotronic), Shoup and various vendors (Brace
2004, p.2).
Discussion on how electronic voting machines
are not trustworthy
The above historical background indicates that
elections and voting systems are often subjected
to fraud, tampering and miscounts by corrupt political
entities. Despite the fact that the government,
election officials and people have tried to rectify
the process by making it as transparent as possible
history depict a bleak scenario where electoral
integrity has always been compromised due to inefficient
mechanisms. Even though election officials and
the government have made every effort to counteract
the problem of fraudulent voting system, yet one
cannot ignore the fact that with the development
of each voting device mentioned above, political
entities find new ways to corrupt it. Electronic
voting machines have also been subjected to the
same putrescence; coupled with internal technological
loopholes makes them unreliable voting devices.
Technological deficiencies
A glimpse at the mechanics of electronic voting
devices would reveal that the equipments are highly
vulnerable technological tampering, security breach
and technical errors. Even though the machines
have some positive aspects these are outweighed
by the consequences of its loopholes. Direct Recording
Electronics or DREs are being manufactured by
different companies with the most recent version
being the AccuVote that weighs around 26 pounds,
portable enough to be carried to polling stations
easily (Smith, 2004). DREs can easily be plugged
into a polling station where it can be used by
the disabled as it is easily navigated by pointing
devices, voice recognition mechanisms, touchscreens
etc. Since the DREs run on software, the issue
of language barriers that tend to hinder many
foreign origin voters from casting votes to participate
in the election as it can be operated in several
popular languages. The structure of the DRE is
easy to use so that voters of all ages can participate
with the least difficulty. Each DRE comprise of
a screen that allows voters to input their choices
by simply touching it or by pushing a button on
a panel. The DRE also contains input sockets for
pointing device or keyboard in case the voter
wants to write-in their votes (Brace 2004). But
overall, the purpose of the button or the touchscreen
is to minimize voter interaction and tampering
with the internal structure of the machine. Vote
counting is automatic as the program that is built
in the DRE is Windows base like those installed
in the off-the-shelf computers.
Yet, the most vulnerable aspect of electronic
voting machine remains is its Windows base platform.
Experts like Professor David Dill at Standard
University are of the opinion that this platform
is susceptible to security flaws (Wiltenburg 2003).
Not only source codes can be copied but they are
easy to hack even by a computer savvy teenage.
Even though executives at Diebold, the maker of
DREs, deny this the fact remains that electronic
voting machines are vulnerable to tampering. According
to Dr. Rubin technical director at Information
Security Institute at John Hopkins University
"the machines' software is encrypted in only
the most basic ways, so people with access to
a machine before election day could easily get
into it and for instance change the program so
that all votes for one candidate go to an opponent....
produce no paper record of a vote, making recounts
impossible..." (Wiltenburg 2003). The latest
modification in the electronic system allows the
officials to "collect" data and then
upload the ballots to a database accessible to
all concerned via a modem or Internet. Experiments
on using the Internet as a medium for ballot casting
at the Defense Department has already been carried
out for overseas personnel that demonstrate Internet
is next on the agenda for electronic voting (Ansolabehere
2001).
There is no doubt that electronic voting machines
significantly eliminate the centuries old problem
of paper trails that result in over vote or under
vote yet it brings with it a baggage of newer
problems. The unreliability of its functions,
the tendency to malfunction in case the Windows-like
software "hangs" thereby erase voter's
records or hacking makes it an unfit system for
voting purposes.
Proponents of the electronic voting machines
hold that the machines eliminate the problem of
paper trails that result in residual votes. Statistics
as indicated by Ansolabehere (2001) indicate that
"lever machines lost relatively few votes
over the last four presidential elections, averaging
a residual vote rate of 1.5 percent. But electronic
machines lost nearly as many votes as punch cards,
averaging 2.3 percent over the last four elections."
According to data provided by the Election Data
Services, this means that for the year 2004 approximately
1.1 million votes will be lost translated 1.1
million people will be denied of their Constitutional
right to vote. Such problems and like the ones
the public faced during the Florida election recount
may be eliminated through stringent monitoring
procedures but newer problems like privacy to
choose, officials being able to view voter's choice
on the screen and no physical record of the votes
makes it even more conspicuous. Proponents argue
and have proposed the incorporation of printouts
to counteract this problem. Given these technological
deficiencies, the fundamental right of the people
to translate their preference to representative
seats therefore is at risk which leads the researcher
to consider another issue: political implications
of using such a system.
Political implications
Following the Florida debacle the new government
took measures to curtail such fiasco from happening
again. The immediate response had been to replace
the butterfly ballots and other outdated systems
with newer technologies. Although the crisis response
had been rapid nevertheless the policy approach
lacked careful evaluation of the core issue. Evaluation
of voting technologies reveals that the issue
is not of outdated technology but rather of reliability,
ease of use, efficiency, accuracy and security
as well as systems' ability to accurately represent
public choice (Elhauge 2001). According to Ted
Selker of the MIT Media Lab most of the DREs in
the market, interfaces are not designed for ease
of use or familiarity for the voter (Ansolabehere
2001). Machine failure should not compromise Constitutional
right due vote loss and instead it should be able
to ensure this right. It must be noted that electronic
voting machines in this case does not meet this
criteria or concern. As discussed above the rate
of vote loss in electronic voting machines are
comparable to any other methods; it does not compensate
for the lack of privacy and vote miscounts as
a result of technological deficiencies.
Congress and the federal government yet believe
that the election procedures and voting technologies
can greatly affect the outcome of the election;
out dated machines must be replaced with newer
electronic voting machines such as touchscreen
and internet technologies. To accomplish this,
they passed the Help America Vote Act (2002).
The Act mandates a federal agency to be set up
to administer and reorganize election administration
including its funding estimated at $4 billion
in Federal grants to the various States. New systems
should be in operation by 2006. According to Chairman
Putnam (2004) of the Committee on Government Reform
new voting systems should be able to:
- "count votes accurately;
- prevent double voting;
- maintain voter privacy and anonymity;
- assure the voter that his or her vote has been
counted toward the final tally without compromising
anonymity;
- prevent vote tampering with results, both during
and after the period during which polls are open,
especially by anyone with authorized access to
those results;
- provide for meaningful audits;
- maintain proper operation even in the face of
power failures and other disasters; and
- support equal access to voting (including access
for sub-populations such as non-English language
voters and voters with various disabilities)."
(Chairman Putnam 2004):
No where does the Act mandate that the technology
be electronic nevertheless experts and officials
feel it is the closest technology to meet the
HAVA requirements. For this reason states like
Georgia took the initiative to be the first to
implement electronic voting machines in its election
(Wiltenburg 2001). While Georgia had been lucky
to successfully launch this new voting system
with accurate results, other states and counties
like Fairfax faced much disappointment.
Fairfax in November 2002 tested touchscreens by
AVS and ES&S. With the success of the test,
the Electoral Board encouraged the purchase of
1000 AVS machines at $3.5 million to be used during
Election Day 2003. Ten of the voting machines
failed in the midst of Election Day and had to
be removed from the polling stations. From Fairfax
county legal suit one learns that electronic voting
machines not only are technically unreliable but
in case of a failure, its repair actions violate
federally certified election procedures (Fairfax
County Republican Committee 2004). Coupled with
this case is the fact that many technologist feel
the electronic voting system is still at its developmental
stage and will not be able to meet the legal electoral
requirements.
From the political point of view some of the
worries that plague electoral candidates and parties
include the political bias electronic voting system
pose to the legal system. In the case of a recount
first of all the majority of the machines do not
provide paper trails for tallying results neither
does it read voter's intent. On the other hand
even if the machines provide paper receipts that
are collected in secure vote boxes, some state
does not have legal provisions for vote recounts
in the first place as was the case of Florida
(Elhauge 2001).However, laws do change and so
do justice officials. After careful evaluation
of the situation the Florida court decided based
on empirical consideration manual recount, and
not machine count, was necessary for soliciting
accurate election results. This decision entailed
two aspects that have been cause for concern for
the Republicans. Firstly manual recount would
reveal there are lesser votes for the Republicans
as compared to Democratic in counties with Republican
support. Secondly, without any standard for recount,
manual recount is exposed to bias officials who
are responsible for the whole operation. Clearly,
the Democrat had been the aggrieved party during
Election 2000 (Elhauge 2001).Electronic voting
machines in this context do not meet the legal
requirements for recount in case of a close election
and are vulnerable to recount in case of a machine
or software failure. Foreseeing such recounts,
Republicans may have been keen on proposing for
the adoption of new technology after the Florida
fiasco but their views have gradually changed.
Republicans claim the US Supreme Court decisions
with regard to election tend towards partisanship
and there is nothing those outside the Court can
do to counteract this bias. Election procedures
and equipment therefore must be under the jurisdiction
of the county government rather than the federal
legislature (Elhauge 2001).
The limitation of the HAVA in determining which
voting method is secure and accurate promulgated
various state legislatures across the country
to propose for government intervention in determining
administrative jurisdiction for future elections,
but not its pervasive adoption. Since the HAVA
has encouraged many counties to adopt electronic
voting systems, in 2003 Rep. Rush Holt proposed
the H.R. 2239 the Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act 2003. This Act assured political
parties and of voting system reliability and transparency.
The Act mandate:
i. "Each new electronic voting machine has
a voter verified paper audit trail;
ii. surprise recount be held in 0.5% of all election
precincts to compare the paper audit trail with
electronic results; and
iii software source code used in all electronic
voting machines be made public (with appropriate
protections) for review and analysis" (Fairfax
County Report 2004).
New York and Illinois are considering new legislation
for the vote machine technical guidelines. Wisconsin
Election Board similarly decertified self audit
machines while Ohio State Secretary rejected HAVA
requirements and electronic voting machines for
electoral purposes. California consider paper
audit trail to be the solution to DRE problems
(Fairfax County Report 2004).
Economical aspect
Such legal requirements will continue to wage
as more and more loopholes of using electronic
voting machines are discovered. In the process
however, tax payers face the brunt of the expenditure
and the cost of machine maintenance. With the
inactions of HAVA, President Bush has assigned
the figure $4 billion for nationwide replacements
of machines, a figure to date has not been fully
met. According to R. Dough Lewis "About twenty-five
percent of election offices in the United States
are about as well funded as any other part of
government. The other seventy-five percent are
among the lowest-funded." (Simurda 2001,
p. 42). This means the majority of the HAVA fund
will first have to renovate these offices before
it can be allocated to replacing machines. Replacing
machines too is a costly process which might cost
$2-9 billion (Fischer 2001, p. 103) for the setting
up, training, maintaining and running the new
systems in "6,800 election jurisdictions
and roughly 18,000 election officials, 1.4 million
poll workers, 200,000 polling places" (Cherry
2003, p. 24). The majority of election fund would
obviously have to come from the national budget
that comes from tax payers which only makes it
incumbent upon the government to provide and install
an error free voting system. Installing electronic
system negate this necessity. The government's
indifferent attitude towards this issue stems
from the fact that electoral candidates are also
rich enough to fund their own campaigns and buying
polling precincts. Some like Chuck Hagel even
own the companies that provide the electronic
machines for election (Cherry 2003, p. 24). Thus
bureaucratic nature of the electoral organization
and the government's dependence on private funds
all the more contribute to the deterioration of
the electoral system in the United States. Congress
members of both the Republicans and the Democrats
on the other hand are not concerned with the system
but rather on how to increase the budget for election
improvements and modernization. Recent proposal
include $10 million for FEC (Federal Election
Commission) study and $250 million for states
to improve their systems. In the process they
compromise public right to federal funds. Organizations
such as NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and
the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
have been divested of their right (Rapoport 2001,
p. 41). Compare the HAVA budget with the Department
of Defense at $327 billion, the Department of
Education at 48.5 billion, and the National Science
Foundation at $4.8 billion (U.S. Office of Management
& Budget), or, on a smaller scale, compare
the state of Florida’s 2001 election overhaul
money from the federal government at $32 million
with the Florida Gulf Coast University 2001 projected
budget at $60.6 million (Fl. Gulf Coast Univ).
Despite this fact, critics are of the opinion
that the allocated budget of $4 billion is not
enough and that more is needed for the full renovation
of America's voting system.
Social and cultural aspects
As much as political parties, government and people
spend on these DREs the fact remains that America
needs a voting system that is autonomous, decentralized
and consideration for citizen's right. Electronic
voting machines' inability to meet technological
and legal requirement are not only issues for
concern. In the process of argument for and against
the electronic voting system, political leaders
and government fail to take into account of the
population readiness to adopt such a system. Not
all Americans are educated and are able to read
votes. The decision to incorporate electronic
voting machines resolve the problems disabled
voters face but it does not compensate for the
poor African Americans or Hispanic Americans or
even Asian Americans who do not have enough resources
to firstly participate in voting; and secondly
do not have the ability to read these votes. Political
leaders that propose the shift of voting process
to the Internet increase this digital divide even
more among the poor. Thus e-voting for ethnic
minorities and working class becomes out of the
question. Even the government makes disparate
efforts to educate and train these individuals
it would take years before this population will
be able to meet the challenge of a truly democratic
regime (Philips 2001, p. 40).
In 1888 it had been easy for the Federal government
to incorporate the Australian secret ballot, technology
derived from Australia. But the current scenario
is different. Electronic voting machines have
been tentatively used in Britain and Canada but
have not been fully used as nationwide electoral
systems. The infancy of the technology makes it
vulnerable, but what’s more important is
the fact that in the midst of a weakened election
administration in American implementation of this
system is exposing the democracy to corruption
and fraud, and at the cost of the public. The
unreliability and shady nature of electronic voting
system have thus motivated many civic groups to
protest against its usage.
Conclusions and future implications
Electronic voting machines no doubt are not the
ultimate solution for election fraud, inaccuracy
and inefficiency. Many political leaders argue
the reliability of the system in eliminating election
fraud that has been predominant in other voting
methods such as punch card, lever machines, paper
ballots and the like yet the electronic voting
machine pose even more threat to the current election
system. Like its predecessors, electronic voting
machines too have many loopholes that allow corrupt
political entities to tamper, miscount and hack
into the system to divert the weightage of the
wining party. Not only does this deny the citizen's
right to vote freely and have faith in the accuracy
of the voting system but it also encourages corruption
in the federal organization.
From the political point of view, it has been
made clear that electronic voting machines cannot
withstand the legal mandates neither does it fully
comply with the HAVA (2002) and Voter Confidence
and Increased Accessibility Act 2003). Due to
technological deficiencies, electronic voting
machines no way can compensate for the loss that
incur during a break down or Windows "hang"
ups. This negates its reliability and untrustworthiness.
Last but not least, citizen's right to vote is
not only inherent in their participation but also
their ability to make intelligent decisions. The
electronic voting systems hinder the participation
of poor minority and ethnic groups with its requirement
for readership and education. Transforming the
current electoral systems therefore means denying
these groups from casting their votes for the
leader of their choice.
This evaluation indicates that future voting systems
must take into account of the variation in usage
of voting systems in counties and states. Any
consideration for its replacement is at the cost
that is beyond any other budget in the history
of election and ballots. To implement the electronic
voting system means that the government would
deny many citizens from their individual rights
such as education and national security etc. Should
the government finally decide to implement this,
it must also consider its future implications
such as the public’s trust in reliable voting
system; others fear new technologies; even more
importantly how the new voting systems would impact
the results of future elections. Future governments
therefore must consider the economical, social
and political implication of adopting such an
unreliable system.
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