We're nowhere near ready to hand over the core of our democratic process—voting—to electronic systems.
By Marc Rotenberg
September 24, 2003
In a recent article on TechnologyReview.com, Simson Garfinkel gleefully reported that the concerns about electronic voting systems expressed by many of the country's leading technical experts were overblown (see "Campaigning for Computerized Voting"). Suggesting that those who worry about the conversion from paper ballots and lever machines to newer technologies are like "a group of doctors arguing for the return of leeches because the President of the United States is too important to be treated by modern medicine," Garfinkel concludes that electronic voting machines may "offer the best hope for escaping the mess inflicted by paper-based balloting system."
Back in the real world, however, the evidence is mounting daily that a lot more work needs to be done before the vote counting process—truly the kernel of democracy—is turned over to devices that lack adequate auditing and operate in secret. One recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and Rice University found that the high-tech voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems allowed voters and poll workers to cast extra votes, and also that cryptographic keys, the basic element of system security, were not properly managed. The governor of Maryland has called for an investigation to determine whether the state's $54 million purchase of these so-called direct recording electronic (or DRE) systems was a wise move.
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http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_rotenberg092403.asp
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