CIS Presents: Electronic Voting

Electronic Voting: Upgrading our Democracy

Electronic voting has become an important issue in our country. Past elections, such as the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush, have led people to question the accuracy of our voting methods. In our current paper ballot system, there are many places where mistakes/fraud happen, such as: registration, polling places, poll workers, ballots, voting mechanism, district tally, aggregate tally, and recount. The pros of the old-fashioned voting method are that the votes are verifiable in a recount and the process is simple to administer. The cons are that it is an inflexible design, the poll workers must be trusted, and the votes are slow to tally.

People have certain expectations of elections. These are: 1) that every vote counts 2) that every vote is counted 3) that every vote accurately reflects the intent of the voter 4) that the voting public has confidence in the electoral system 5) that the paper record is the legal representation of the vote 6) that electronic records can be audited and compared with the paper records 7) that election equipment and systems are open for public review.

Four characteristics of a perfect voting system would be accuracy, anonymity, scalability, and speed. A voting system must be accurate in tallying correctly and being secure from interference. It must be anonymous so that all the ballots are secret and there is no way to force a person's vote. The voting system must be scalable in that it can handle large and small elections, can handle mixes of candidates and issues, can serve the disabled, and can serve other languages. In the United States, the people demand a quick result of the elections, so the speed of the system is also another important factor.

The Help America Vote Act is an act that requires states to modernize voting equipment, centralize registered voter polls, require a driver's license to register, and make voting machines accessible for the disabled. The Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machine (DRE) is one way of making the voting process electronic. Through it, the voter is issued a smart card with the appropriate ballot on it, the vote is recorded on a hard drive, and the card is reused for other voters. However, potential problems with this system are that the hard drive could crash, a person could vote multiple times, and you must trust that whatever you press is what is actually recorded.

Overall, the pros of e-voting are that it is easy to use, there is electronic guidance throughout the process, there can be audio prompting, ADA devices, and different languages. The cons of e-voting are that it requires the poll workers to have a high-tech expertise, the system could be hijacked, there may be software bugs, and the voting is difficult to verify. All these factors will contribute to the eventual use or rejection of e-voting as the primary system of voting.