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Computer Experts: Paperless Voting a Threat to Democracy
Florida's hanging chads may have been one of the culprits in the 2000 election debacle, but at least there were paper ballots to be examined and counted when the polls closed.
That won't be the case in many future elections as more counties and states go to electronic voting that computer experts say is alarmingly easy to manipulate. This November, at least 28 percent of all ballots are expected to be cast by computer.
"Anything in a computer can be changed. It's nothing more than an electronic image. You have to have a paper record," said Teresa Hommel, who has worked with computers since 1967 and is now helping lead a campaign to require that computer votes be accompanied by a paper receipt and audit.
Hommel spoke to CWA's Legislative-Political Conference and urged participants to support the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require independent audit capabilities and other security measures in all electronic voting systems. The House bill is sponsored by Representative Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and the Senate version is sponsored by Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.).
To underscore the urgency of the legislation, Hommel showed the audience a website she created to demonstrate how the system can be corrupted. The site is at www.wheresthepaper.org. Hommel illustrated the problem by casting three votes - two for "John Doe" and one for "Mary Smith." Each time the computer double-checked her choice and asked if it was correct. Then she closed out the election, as a precinct worker would do, and asked the computer to tally the votes. "Mary Smith" had two votes, "John Doe" had only one.
The computer is set up so that Mary Smith will always win, no matter what. Hommel said any computer voting program can be rigged the same way. Whether by corruption or accident, electronic voting has already caused numerous problems across the country. The website www.truemajority.org lists some of the failures:
"Elections are inherently adversarial and are conducted by officials currently in power, so there is considerable opportunity for corruption by insiders," she said. "A high level of technical expertise is not necessary to rig or trigger a breach."
Hommel said all of the officials and technicians who support electronic voting have given her nothing but "excuses" why a paper trail isn't possible. In 36 years of computer work, she said she's done jobs inside virtually every Fortune 500 company and many government agencies and that proponents of electronic voting are the only people she's ever worked with who haven't demanded a paper audit of their computer program.
She wound up her speech with a quote from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "Stalin said, 'It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes."'
Learn more about the technical and political problems of electronic voting, and solutions being proposed, by checking out the Where's the Paper and True Majority sites listed above as well as www.verifiedvoting.org.
That won't be the case in many future elections as more counties and states go to electronic voting that computer experts say is alarmingly easy to manipulate. This November, at least 28 percent of all ballots are expected to be cast by computer.
"Anything in a computer can be changed. It's nothing more than an electronic image. You have to have a paper record," said Teresa Hommel, who has worked with computers since 1967 and is now helping lead a campaign to require that computer votes be accompanied by a paper receipt and audit.
Hommel spoke to CWA's Legislative-Political Conference and urged participants to support the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require independent audit capabilities and other security measures in all electronic voting systems. The House bill is sponsored by Representative Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and the Senate version is sponsored by Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.).
To underscore the urgency of the legislation, Hommel showed the audience a website she created to demonstrate how the system can be corrupted. The site is at www.wheresthepaper.org. Hommel illustrated the problem by casting three votes - two for "John Doe" and one for "Mary Smith." Each time the computer double-checked her choice and asked if it was correct. Then she closed out the election, as a precinct worker would do, and asked the computer to tally the votes. "Mary Smith" had two votes, "John Doe" had only one.
The computer is set up so that Mary Smith will always win, no matter what. Hommel said any computer voting program can be rigged the same way. Whether by corruption or accident, electronic voting has already caused numerous problems across the country. The website www.truemajority.org lists some of the failures:
- In Broward County, Fla., in January, touchscreen machines reported that 134 ballots had no votes registered. There was only one race on the ballot and the winning candidate won by only 12 votes. A recount was impossible.
- In Fairfax County, Va., voters saw the "X" they placed on the touchscreen move from their candidate to the opponent.
- In Raleigh, N.C., election officials switched back to paper ballots after finding that the touchscreen machines had discarded hundreds of votes.
- In Bernillo County, N.M., faulty software threw out 12,000 votes.
"Elections are inherently adversarial and are conducted by officials currently in power, so there is considerable opportunity for corruption by insiders," she said. "A high level of technical expertise is not necessary to rig or trigger a breach."
Hommel said all of the officials and technicians who support electronic voting have given her nothing but "excuses" why a paper trail isn't possible. In 36 years of computer work, she said she's done jobs inside virtually every Fortune 500 company and many government agencies and that proponents of electronic voting are the only people she's ever worked with who haven't demanded a paper audit of their computer program.
She wound up her speech with a quote from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "Stalin said, 'It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes."'
Learn more about the technical and political problems of electronic voting, and solutions being proposed, by checking out the Where's the Paper and True Majority sites listed above as well as www.verifiedvoting.org.