We don’t need computers to enable voting in our republic. Technology can serve us, or we can be slaves to technology. In the case of electronic voting, the technology does not serve us sufficiently well to compensate for the risk and expense that it introduces. We are better off manually counting votes, with witnesses to verify.
Nearly three years ago, I voiced concern about the security of up-and-coming electronic voting systems in my home state, Utah. My colleagues and I wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper, and I spoke with the Utah County Commissioner. At the time, the commissioner told me that they wouldn’t buy Diebold machines, due to security concerns they’d heard about from other states.
Apparently, security concerns aren’t of concern — “All 29 counties [in the state of Utah] signed a contract saying they would use the Diebold machines,” said Michael Cragun, director of the State Elections Office. Officials “are aware of the problems, but Diebold is addressing it.” Excuse my skepticism, but I’ve heard that one before. Diebold will not address the problems until their feet are held to the fire. The only way we will get secure electronic voting is to 1. require full vendor responsibility for flaws, 2. have the systems openly peer reviewed for security flaws or bugs by experts, and 3. electronic election results must be audited. However, we don’t need electronic voting. The current, manual procedures aren’t broken.
Deseret News Article: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,635194578,00.html
Questions we should be asking of e-voting vendors: http://avirubin.com/vote/questions.html