Letter Report on Electronic Voting (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Letter Report on Electronic Voting
Letter Report on Electronic Voting
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Brandt: With this letter report,1 the National Research Council's Committee on a Framework for Understanding Electronic Voting (Appendix A) seeks to provide some idea of the current state of readiness for electronic voting in jurisdictions across the United States and to gauge what progress has been made since the publication of the committee's 2005 report, Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting.2 This second report of the committee is based on a May 2006 workshop that brought together a number of knowledgeable and thoughtful local, state, and federal election officials (Appendix B)
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, although it remains to be seen what legal or political consequences, if any, will flow from these missed deadlines. Other jurisdictions will meet HAVA deadlines in a technical sense but may not be able to fulfill certain key HAVA objectives, such as increasing voting booth accessibility for disabled voters or reducing the error rate in the ballots cast.4 In still other cases, jurisdictions rushing to meet deadlines for HAVA compliance might have done so in counterproductive ways, such as by buying equipment that is not up to par, using software that may not be fully compatible with existing applications, not becoming sufficiently familiar with vendor products, and so on.
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· Security. Security issues remain prominent in the public debate about voting technologies.7 For example, even as the committee was meeting, concerns were spreading about a new vulnerability discovered in one prominent vendor's equipment.8 On June 27, 2006, New York University's Brennan Center for Justice released a report focusing on security vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines.9 Physical security was also discussed at the workshop -- with one official recounting the difficulties in providing adequate warehousing space for her e-voting equipment, as well as concerns about how to transport such equipment safely and securely.
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,13 and no supplemental funds are likely to be forthcoming from either the federal government or the states for conducting elections. Thus, many jurisdictions are facing the November elections without adequate financial resources to address the problems they see on the horizon-problems including equipment testing; maintenance and storage; training of poll workers; and voter education.
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14The group of election officials assembled for this workshop agreed that their jurisdictions have relatively greater access to resources than do most other jurisdictions and thus are not necessarily representative of most jurisdictions across the nation. The committee also noted that most voting jurisdictions in the nation are on the smaller side.
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Sixth, election jurisdictions vary widely in their knowledge and expertise regarding electronic voting.20 Those with less knowledge about technology or with less experience in contracting with technology vendors clearly operate at a disadvantage in preparing for the November elections, and a lack of technology background or contracting experience regarding assessments of quality, performance, and reliability can increase the influence of politics and personal relationships in the procurement process. Election officials in such jurisdictions could benefit from their more experienced colleagues in learning about problems associated with the products of different vendors, solutions to such problems, jurisdiction-appropriate contract provisions, backup procedures and contingency plans, and law and regulation.
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Another option might be to have available and on call technicians and/or a few spare voting machines in a van that could be redeployed promptly. A third option is to ensure that a reasonable stock of hand-countable paper ballots is created before the election and designated for use only in an emergency that renders the original voting method unusable.
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Since jurisdictions are generally not in a position to undertake such research themselves, they might request such assistance from the Election Assistance Commission and other entities in developing a national clearinghouse and resource for information regarding election administration. For example, these organizations could compile best practices related to contracting with vendors for e-voting equipment and related services, develop a database of state election laws to facilitate easy comparisons and information exchange, and establish discussion forums for election officials in which problems and solutions could be discussed candidly.
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However, these observations are not meant to suggest that there will be widespread failures of electronic voting systems, that election results will be clouded by excessive voter confusion about using new electronic voting systems, or that electronic election fraud will necessarily occur in November. Nevertheless, the circumstances of the November election raise the stakes for conducting elections that are regarded as fair and that can withstand close scrutiny even in the face of unproven technology and new election procedures.
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Staff HERBERT S LIN, Senior Scientist and Study Director KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate DAVID PADGHAM, Associate Staff Officer BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Staff Assistant 10
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Congressional Research Service George Gilbert, Guilford County, North Carolina Gracia Hillman, U.S. Election Assistance Commission Susan Inman, Pulaski County, Arkansas Linda Lamone, Maryland State Board of Elections Ray Martinez, U.S.
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This method involves the possibility of a mistake because the ballot is examined only once or a mistake because only one person is doing the tallying. Since this method commonly involves reading through the entire ballot, the ballot reader's eye and brain are not focused on looking for a single type of data, and thus the reader must expend mental effort to distinguish among the contests in which choices are made.
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