Electronic Voting’s Long List of Problems

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a massive article covering the issues with electronic voting machines. The online version stretches over 10 pages, so let me provide a short summary before starting in on my response.

Electronic voting machines routinely have problems with the following:

• server crashes
• software interactions (most run custom software on top of a version of Windows)
• printer jams
• missing memory cards
• touch screen flaws (these range from whether a past voters greasy fingers interfered with your vote to the mysterious ‘drag and drop’ problem in which a certain way of touching the screen causes the machine to crash)
• reliability of printouts (they don’t always match up with electronic votes)
• computer bugs
• testing methods
• older volunteers’ inability to handle equipment
• civil rights (it’s theoretically possible to identify which voter voted for whom on an electronic system, if only by the order in which voters cast ballots)

There’s more beyond that, honestly. The article is essentially ten pages of the shortfalls of electronic voting machines. Theoretically, with enough effort, all these technical issues can be addressed.

But there is one crucial issue that no amount of technical improvements can address. At this point, the American public simply doesn’t trust the machines. It doesn’t matter how many billions of dollars both the vendors of electronic voting machines and election boards put into the problem — and it will take that sort of significant cash flow to improve the product and get it into able county hands —voters are still going to be wary of any voting mechanism that doesn’t allow for a physical recount.

With enough time, and perhaps a solid public relations campaign, I think that it is possible for voters to become comfortable with electronic voting. After all, ATMs (another Diebold product) have replaced huge numbers of tellers and automated checkout lines are doing away with many cashiers. But it’s going to take a while. People get upset over their candidates in a way that they would never consider for the price of a loaf of bread.