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There is an ironic twist in the increasingly heated debate over the security of electronic voting. Those intent on casting doubt on the integrity of an election decided by touch-screen voting insist that a paper backup be required. Yet it was the unreliability of paper ballots that sparked the election crisis in the first place. How quickly we have forgotten the nightmare of punch cards and pregnant chads.
While a voter-verified paper trail, as it is called, might be desirable as a way to bolster confidence in touch-screen voting, it could have the opposite effect if done hastily and recklessly. In the few places it has been tried experimentally, printers jammed and voters grew frustrated with the process.
That is the dilemma the new Election Assistance Commission faces as it attempts to bring clarity to the election process so that there is not a repeat of 2000. It's quite a challenge. Testimony at recent commission hearings couldn't have been more contradictory.
"Touch screens have a proven track record of doing the best job," Los Angeles election chief Conny B. McCormack told the commission. Yet California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has banned the use of touch screens in that state for the 2004 election and asked the commission to quickly require a paper trail. Georgia election official Kathy Rogers called such printed backups "an untested and untried experiment upon the voters." And the watchdog groups weren't much help, either. Common Cause wants the commission to require a paper trail this year, but the League of Women Voters defends electronic voting and wants to get through the 2004 election before trying to resolve the complex issue.
What are commissioners and, more importantly, voters to think? First, everyone should calm down. The implied security threat to touch-screen machines is hypothetical, so far, and no one has produced convincing evidence that tampering has ever occurred. In Florida, a rigorous certification process and security measures taken by election supervisors should assure voters that electronic voting is safe. That's not to say there won't be mechanical glitches and human error, which occur in every election.
DeForest Soaries Jr., the commission chairman, said the bipartisan group would not tell states whether to adopt a paper trail. Rather, it would establish "best practice" guidelines for those that choose to do so. The decision is appropriately left to the states, but they have neither the hardware nor the procedures in place to make an informed choice.
In Florida, no such printer has even been submitted for certification, and it is difficult to see how it could be before the state establishes a policy on how such ballots are to be handled. Meanwhile, Florida residents have no reason to believe electronic voting has been compromised. Critics point to an instance of undervoting in a Broward County universal primary, but elections supervisors say it is not unusual for some voters to make no choice in a contest open to all but featuring only candidates from one party.
Much of the blame for the growing controversy falls on Diebold, manufacturer of voting machines under fire in California and Maryland. (Diebold touch screens have not been approved for use in Florida.) Diebold brought the trouble on itself by being careless with its source code and allowing chief executive Walden O'Dell to be a political operative in the Republican Party and in President Bush's re-election campaign. In California, the failure of Diebold voting machines is troubling, but it involved breakdowns that could have been avoided if poll workers had been better trained. A paper trail would have been of no help in that case.
Electronic voting is evolving, and new technology could in time address the concerns of critics who are demanding a paper trail. Meanwhile, it makes no sense to attempt to avert a perceived crisis by acting hastily and creating a real one.