Fingers Crossed That Voting Machines Work

(CBS)  By CBS Evening News Investigative Unit producer Phil Hirschkorn.

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On Tuesday, 4 out of 5 voters across America will use touch-screen machines or optical scanners to cast their ballots. More than one-third of the electorate will vote electronically for the first time, raising questions about whether voters, machines, and poll workers are up to the task.

After the disputed 2000 Presidential election and Florida's infamous "hanging chad" punch-card recount, the federal government allocated $3 billion to help states buy new voting machines and created the Election Assistance Commission to oversee the sweeping change.

"I'm confident with all the machines that are being put out there, whether it's one company or another," says EAC Chairman Paul DeGregorio. "In the end, you can trust the results."

But states with the new machines are hedging their bets. According to the non-partisan Electionline.org, 18 of the 33 states using touch screen machines require them to generate a paper trail – a kind of cash register scroll covered in clear plastic – that voters can see and verify before they punch the "vote" button that records their vote. Nowhere does a voter receive a printout of their vote like an ATM receipt.

To the ire of many voting watchdog groups, 15 states using touch screen machines do not require a voter verifiable paper trail.

Changes — Too Much Too Soon?

Electionline.org Director Doug Chapin found half the states that made the switch to machines did so in the past two years – potentially increasing the chance of mishaps. Connecticut, for example, will be using optical scanners in 25 towns for the first time on Election Day.

"Lots of jurisdictions around the country have been asked to swallow a lot of change in 2006, and many of them are going to suffer indigestion," Chapin says.

In fact, the more low-tech optical scanners are the most popular machines. Fifty-six percent of U.S. counties, with 49% of the nation's registered
voters, will be using optical scan equipment, while only 36% of counties, with 38% of the voters will use the touch screens, according to Election Data Services.

With scanners, a voter typically fills out their choices with a pen on a paper ballot – typically ovals as on a standardized test. The scanner counts the votes and stores the paper ballots, forming an automatic paper trail for a recount.

Fears the machines may fail has driven up voter anxiety. So have reports of machine snafus in primaries this year — paper jams, power outages, service issues, and setbacks tabulating results.

In Maryland, the governor and his challenger asked supporters to vote by paper absentee ballots, and the state ordered enough for half its voters. In Colorado, a judge ruled its states machines should never have been certified.

Ohio-based Diebold, the nation's leading vote machine manufacturer, has supplied 38 states with 136,000 touch screen units and 24,000 optical scanners.

"Diebold does not control the elections. We provide the election equipment," says Diebold Marketing Director Mark Radke.

During a show-and-tell at company headquarters, Radke demonstrated how a plastic voter access card is ejected and voided so you cannot vote again, and how a security sticker covers the slot for the machine's memory card.

"Even if that memory card disappears for some reason, you still have all the votes that have been cast on that machine in your internal, non-volatile memory," Radke says.

Radke likes to point out that machines help voters avoid mistakes like "overvoting" – picking two candidates – and "undervoting" – failing to pick anyone for an office – because the machine prompts a voter to recheck such choices.

Tampering Possible?

Although touch screen machines are neither connected to one another or the Internet, if machines were to switch votes due to sabotage or tampering, you might never know.

"I think we need to replace them and not use systems that are requiring trust in software that can never be trusted," says John Hopkins University computer scientist Avi Rubin, author of "Brave New Ballot," a critique of the machines, particularly Diebold's.

"If the systems go down because of something like a power outage or a power surge or a glitch, it's very possible that event would cause the hard discs and the flashcards inside of them to fail," Rubin says.

Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten has demonstrated a machine could be vulnerable to an electronic Trojan horse — a computer virus that could steal votes and tilt an election. Felten obtained an old Diebold machine and tampered with its memory card in his office, causing votes in a mock presidential election to switch from George Washington to Benedict Arnold.

"A single person might be able to steal an election in a nearly undetectable way in a real election in the United States," Felten says. "Either you switch to a backup system, like a low-tech paper ballot, of you just cross your fingers and hope for the best."

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[kaliveotin]

Most of the Bill of Rights has already been dismantled, Now the right to a free and fair election where individual voters can have faith in the outcome, has also suddenly disappeared.
The only question left is Will the American people let this injustice stand?

[bluestardad]

Be Ever Vigilant. Bush and Rove will do anything to stay in power up to an including flooding key districts with fake absentee ballots tampering with electronic voting machines, and bussing in voters who are not from the districts to vote, or even starting another war with and suspending civil liberties postponing the mid term vote. There is a great possibility for this administration to tamper with the electronic voting machines to the point that very subtle differences will take place in Key races just enough to tip the vote in their favor but not enough to cause a full scale American Revolution leaving some doubt, but just enough to throw key races in the Republican Favor. Watch out for this election coup.

[long_rider]

The introduction of such a radical change in our voting system has to be questioned. I would like to have seen a test conducted in a state such as New Mexico or Arizona. To launch a new suspect system at such a critical time is sure to cause problems, especially if voters feel the results do not reflect their ballots. I don't know came up with this brain storm, but it really stinks of political trickery, and could have far reaching ramifications.

The American people don't trust big business, so why do we permit these machines to be used in the first place, and Americans don't trust our government, the ones who came up with this idea. I guess we will have to suffer the fate lazy people often face, just let someone else dictate everything, there is little I can do about it, and live with the scraps they give us.

These machines are clearly an attempt to negate the influence of the American vote. If we let them get away with this charade our vote will be just as meaningless as our Representatives in Washington DC.

%u201CAnd the American sheep keep grazing%u201D

[radiob-2009]

The electronic voting machines should give the voter and the polling place a printout of their vote.The voter can immediately check it for errors and report it.If the race is close the voters from all respective parties can then make copies of their votes and submit them to their party,it is a common knowledge that polling workers are biased and there counts cannot be trusted so the parties could then tabulate the votes and see if there is an actual discrepancy.Checks and balances like banks should be prevalent in voting.

[mrwhitey3]

I agree with pakaal completely. It is insane what we have put up with here in the US. When Jimmy Carter was asked if he would oversee the US elections, he stated that that he could not. US elections do not even meet the bare minimum of a free and fair election.

There is not a dimes worth of difference between republicans and democrates. They work together to keep the congress divided 50/50. A house divided paralizes the people while the Zionist bankers, oil men, big pharma, etc. all get their way. We should smash these machines to dust and go to paper ballots like Kucinich says. Then we can smash the machine that exploits us.

[mh4cbs1]

I hope our Diebold machines work as planned!

The backdoor security holes we left in the software are the only chance left to make sure that the NeoCon regime remains in complete control of our government. If the Republicans aren't helped out with our machines its all over for them The American people seem to finally be figuring it out -- that all the Bush tough-guy talk was just hot air and lies...

[pakaal]

"'I think we need to replace them and not use systems that are requiring trust in software that can never be trusted,' says John Hopkins University computer scientist Avi Rubin...."

I've got a much better idea. Nationalize control and manufacture of the machines and place the process under bipartisan or outside review. We don't allow private control over health, education, welfare, defense, etc., how is it that we allow private control over the very process that's supposed to determine who runs the government?