Electronic Voting and Democracy

The results of the 2008 national elections seem to discredit conspiracy theories that Republicans are using electronic voting systems to fix elections, but that is no reason to stop paying attention to how these systems could be abused. A Wired article on Michigan's voting machines brought up some interesting points. The most telling part I thought was a quote from Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson, saying ""The same ballots, run through the same machines, yielded different results each time." Since the function of a vote counting machine is to count votes, not being able to accurately count votes makes it useless. It goes to show that human error (in the design/construction of the machines) is as big an issue as human abuse of electronic voting systems.

But the problems don't stop in Michigan. As another Wired article states, we used the same kind of electronic voting machines in Minnesota. These machines are responsible for for counting a vote that came down to 312 votes! I'm surprised that this isn't an argument that Norm Coleman has brought up in his endless barrage of appeals (it's a lot more legitimate claim than any he's made so far).

The only solution I can see is more government transparency. President Obama has vowed to make governmental processes more transparent to citizens of the US, hopefully elections will be part of that movement.

(Side note: As we complain about how electronic voting machines could hurt democracy here in the US, I think it' interesting to look at how they are helping in other parts of the world. As this FAQ from India-Elections.com explains, in India electronic voting machines are seen as advantageous in situations where armed men take over polling places to stuff ballot boxes because "The EVMs are programmed in such a way that the machines will record only five votes in a minute. As recording of votes has necessarily to be through Control Unit and Balloting Unit, whatever be the number of miscreants they can record vote only at the rate of 5 per minute. In the case of ballot papers, the miscreants can distribute all the 1000 odd ballot papers assigned to a polling station, among themselves, stamp them, stuff them into the ballot boxes and run away before the police reinforcements reach. In half- an -hour, the miscreants can record only a maximum of 150 votes by which time, chances are the police reinforcement would have arrived. ")