This NYT article supports criticism on voting machines.
I have blogged this before. And I have endorsed the resolution on electronic voting. To state my position again, in a slightly more radical way:
Get rid of all voting machines. They are a risk to the integrity of the voting process that is simply not acceptable. The small advantage of having some result a few hours later is irrelevant compared to the disastrous consequences of having people tampering with the machines or - what amounts to almost as much damage to the voting process - not being able to prove that nobody tampered with the machines because you don't have a paper trail.
I still agree with Ed Felten's opinion: A good voting machine with a clear paper audit trail would be slightly superior to plain paper ballots.
However as long as this ideal system is not built and deployed everywhere, aiming for the ideal solution should not distract from the more urgent task of blasting black box technology. The strategy should be:
Go back to paper ballots everywhere and use voting machines only for legally not binding exit polls. They should give you a fast but preliminary result with whatever reliability the particular voting machine technology used delivers. But the unacceptable danger of tampering or of being unable to audit exactly would disappear.
Link credit: Slashdot, with some more comments critical of electronic voting in the discussion.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at May 18, 2003 01:53 PM | TrackBackBesides complaining in weblogs and writing academic papers there is something you can actually to affecting the use of voting machines very directly:
Get involved! In many democracys everybody can be in the comission supervising a polling station. It's not that much work. Some evenings of tutorials about the voting process and the voting day itself. So if there are voting machines used in your commuity be there. Document and Point out the problems. Refuse to sign the papers which state that the vote went without any corruption in case you're not sure it did. Even if you are not in any comission, you usually can be present as an private citizen (e.g. § 54 BWO).
Be sure that the usage of voting machines is a hassle to the authorities. That is perfectly ethical, because it is actually a hassle - you just have to ensure that the hassle propagates to those in charge.
BTW: Does anybody know who actually decides about the usage of voting machines in the different kinds of elections in germany?
Posted by: Max Dornseif on May 18, 2003 04:39 PM