Voting Technology Problems: What, Why, and So What?
From OSDVwiki
To some that are new to technology-creates problems with voting and elections, some frequent questions are: what's the problem and why? and why are those problems important? Here are some brief answers.
[edit] What's the Problem?
Elections in the U.S. are almost entirely conducted using "election systems" of hardware and software to automate the preparations for elections, counting ballots and other post-election operations. Voting is also often automated with polling place devices such as paper ballot optical scanners or direct-record devices.
There are frequent reports of election system malfunctions of many kinds, the most concerning being errors that lead to incorrect tallying that affects the outcome of an election, or polling place issues that leave voters unsure that their ballot was cast correctly. But there are many other types of errors, confusing behavior, and concerns of voters, poll-workers, and elections officials. Often, there is public disagreement over whether a particular incident was malfunction, improper usage, poor administration, user error, mis-understanding, etc.
And last but not least, the proprietary nature of voting systems, and their complexity and apparent unreliability, have led to concerns over the risks of security of election system devices and the integrity of election results.
[edit] Why Do We Have These Problems?
All election systems in use today are the result of the U.S. Congress passing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, to provide funding for states to improve election methods to avoid another major elections incident like the 2000 presidential election marred by "hanging chad" and Supreme Court litigation.
These systems were rushed to market without a high degree of regard for several properties that are critical for a high-reliability, high-confidence election -- simplicity, reliability, integrity, transparency, auditability, etc. Because there were no specific requirements in these areas, the vendors quite rationally chose not to delay time-to-market by investing heavily in product R&D in these areas.
What we have today are the results of that rush to market, and subsequent changes to the voting systems in response to piecemeal requests or requirements from dozens of states and hundreds of the over 3000 city or county elections offices in the U.S.
[edit] What Are the Risks?
These problems are very significant because they undermine public confidence in the elections process and the election results. The mission of elections organizations is to conduct an election process that voters can trust, and to produce election results that the public can have confidence in.
Continued use of current voting systems makes that mission more difficult all the time, with a mounting list of apparent electronic election irregularities, public disputes over them, litigation between counties, states, and vendors, and more. The election systems themselves have gotten more complex, not less, as a result of continuing concerns, and the complexity leads to more incidents that are caused in part by incomplete understanding and improper use.
Concern over security risks has increased over time as well, with technical scrutiny of election systems and devices, and real incidents of security breaches of election system components. There is concern of the possibility of election systems being used as powerful technical tools for corrupting election processes and results. There is also concern that these risks are vastly overstated. Regardless, broad press coverage and vigorous debate over these concerns, both server to further undermine public confidence in election integrity.
