Bob Barr

No-Confidence Vote Earned by Machines

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

August 30, 2006

I hate to admit it, but Cynthia McKinney may be on to something.

McKinney's post-election diatribe against her usual litany of enemies aside, her broadside against electronic voting machines may have some merit. Not in terms of her election loss, I hasten to add.

There has been not a shred of evidence that her 17-point loss to Hank Johnson was the result of anything other than weariness of her antics by voters. But questions raised about electronic voting machines have become sufficiently widespread and credible as to warrant serious study and action by Georgia and other states.

The pell-mell rush to electronic voting machines was launched after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida. It was fueled by Congress' knee-jerk reaction to that fiasco in passing the "Help America Vote Act" in 2002, along with a boatload of taxpayer dollars— nearly $4 billion.

Unfortunately, this well-funded fascination with electronic voting machines has proceeded with virtually no comprehensive study or development of national standards to ensure the integrity of the machines and how they are utilized. Each state sets its own standards—or doesn't—and follows its own rules in letting contracts for the machines.

Most states, including Georgia, have opted for machines that provide no paper trail. Other, more costly machines produce a "voter-verified paper trail" that records a voter's choices in electronic form with the machine's computer(s) and contemporaneously on paper, thus allowing for audits. Regardless of which type of electronic voting machine a state chooses, however, experts agree that all have serious potential problems. They are susceptible to hacking, especially those with wireless components.

A recent, 150-page report by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School concluded that because there are no comprehensive standards for electronic voting machines, and given the demonstrated potential problems inherent in such devices, all states ought to take certain steps to enhance security and minimize opportunity for fraud, including:

•  Automatic and routine audits, with voter-verified paper records, in every election.

•  Random selection of voting machines on election days for testing and examination for     possible software attacks or viruses.

•  Banning of wireless components in all voting machines.

Even though there have been no serious breaches of electronic voting machine operations in Georgia—or at least none we know about—there have been in other states.

In Ohio, for example, a study of voting machine irregularities conducted by the Election Science Institute resulted in a report highly critical of the Diebold machines used in that state. According to the report, the paper records from many machines were missing, destroyed or unreadable. ESI also found that in numerous instances, the paper records did not match the electronic records. While Diebold, the nation's largest supplier of touch-screen voting machines, understandably has taken strong exception to the ESI report, the problems this study and others recount clearly call for more than a knee-jerk defense.

Lawsuits attacking various aspects of electronic voting are pending in a number of states, including Georgia. Election officials in at least two states—California and Pennsylvania— reportedly have issued warnings to local election supervisors about possible problems in the software used in Diebold touch-screen voting machines. A recent CNN report revealed that electronic voting machine "motherboards"—a virtual road map for potential hackers— were for sale on eBay and that voting machines could be tampered with by opening the machine with a household screwdriver. Such tampering would likely go undetected because the machines (which apparently are used in Georgia) have no tamper seals.

The problems—real and potential—are serious and need to be addressed. McKinney's vitriol aside, lack of confidence in our voting system is a cancer that eats at the very fabric of our democracy. Georgia's General Assembly, with the support of the governor and secretary of state, should not dally in taking steps to rebuild that slipping confidence.

Outlawing wireless components in voting machines, requiring tamper seals on all machines, mandating the use of voter-verified paper records and requiring auditing procedures would not be overly expensive; particularly when balanced against the confidence they would build.

Mr. Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union Foundation.