Are Electronic Voting Systems Ready for Tuesday?
The Washington Post political blog “The Fix” has a good and fairly even-handed roundup of charges and counter-charges surrounding the rollout of electronic voting systems in the run-up to the election this Tuesday. I have been interested in this topic ever since I helped edit a great law review article by law professor Paul Schwartz (who is primarily a privacy scholar) exploring the legal ramifications of fallible voting technology — well worth checking out. I also note that Princeton computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied the issue closely, will be the guest for an online discussion at the Post web site on Tuesday.
Schwartz argues, and I agree, that much of the new technology being rolled out to prevent Bush v. Gore-style meltdowns may actually precipitate them in the future. That is not some Luddite view of an inherent flaw in technology, but a sophisticated understanding that technology installed without proper planning, backup precautions, and audit trails will be unable to deal with human error in its use or unexpected contingencies.
Filed under: Encryption, Media, Scholarship, Security, Software, Voting
[...] Electionline.org has issued a preliminary report assessing the performance of voting technology and administration in the recent election, which election law expert Rick Hasen calls “required reading.” The upshot: we didn’t have the meltdown that I’d worried about. But the report describes how we need to prepare for new problems and not only for those that arose in prior elections. Any IT professional could tell you that, but it is not the operating principle in election administration. In an interview on Minnesota Public Radio this morning, Doug Chapin, Electionline’s director, went further, noting that the widespread problems they documented may have been minor only because the localities with irregularities happened were not, by and large, the same ones that had close races. [...]
[...] It seems that we are finally recognizing the problems inherent in e-voting. But because of the huge quantity of money that has already been spent on deficient systems, solutions to problems may be prospective only. As a result, many of the jurisdictions that were the quickest to adopt high-tech voting machines will be stuck with problems the longest! [...]
[...] Are Electronic Voting Systems Ready for Tuesday? [...]