Not too long ago, I recall us discussing the merits or demerits of electronic voting machines. There’s a whole lot of people who are dead-set on the idea of electronic voting. Turns out, they may have been right. Here’s the start of an Associated Press story (which, I hope, you will read before commenting here):
The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses: Warehouses stacked with thousands of carefully wrapped voting machines that have been shelved because of doubts about vanishing votes and vulnerability to hackers.
What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question. One manufacturer offered $1 a piece to take back its ATM-like machines. Some states are offering the devices for sale on eBay and craigslist. Others hope to sell their inventories to Third-World countries or salvage them for scrap.
Now, certainly, that means election officials are scrambling in some cases to return to older or alternative voting methods. Like paper.
But before you electronic-voting-bashers jump for joy, read this paragraph from the story:
But reverting to paper has caused its own problems. During this year’s primary season, record numbers of voters showed up. That caused ballots to run out, which delayed the often-cumbersome task of feeding paper ballots into scanning machines. Changing to paper also meant that local election districts had to spend extra money on printing costs.
Meanwhile, friends, recall that I lived in Florida. In 2000. I well remember the hanging chad and butterfly ballot — all associated with paper.
So, what’s the best way to vote? Can there ever be a foolproof voting method?
Kurt has been an editor at the Post-Dispatch since August 2002, working on both STLtoday and the newspaper. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Some of the most secure computers in the world have been hacked into! why would the electronic voting machine be any safer? or secure? they are not and should be dumped for the paper system! If you give an opportunity to cheat it WILL happen! Look how many dead people and dogs have voted!!!!
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The scantron idea is quite humerous. As a teacher, I can’t tell you how many students I have who can’t properly use one. And these are high school kids. Keep the electronic bots for ease, and recount paper and electronic trails.
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I have used pretty much all forms of voting in my life from paper ballots to pucnh cards to touch screens. All have their inherent advantages and defects.
Touch screen with paper trail seems okay to me as long as when I hit the “accept” button, it is final and cannot be changed.
I would prefer any machine that Senator Bond is not involved with or Karl Rove or any of the othe crooks who work for Diebold voting machine division.
I do want to know why it is possible for the dead to vote in certain parts of the country, but in Florida apparently if you were african-american you found your way blocked by the state police? Or could both of these be “urban legends”?
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Tim, isn’t that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? Heard the missing email story yet? You are just mad becasue more than one person disagreed with your repub bias stories. Mr I wanna carry a gun in public to blast all those scary hood boyz away. Level fields scare you…big time. Many of us are tired of your conservative digs and personal slams on these blogs. You creep like the troll you are. Now go find those missing emails and bring back the surplus monies your boy GB was handed. Seems a LOT is missing. Terrorists got nothing on you repubs as far as destroying what this country stands for. Lets have a blog on the emails…and the 250 million Karl Rove has waiting for Johnny. You are kind of like Johnny…only personal slams…and nothing to say.
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So where are all the missing emails JohnH??? Heard THAT story yet. Why do you dis dems, yet use their social service programs? HMM??? KInd of hypocritical. Your mistake was putting your personal address on here. Few things you say are true, yet you yammer on…a nattering nabob of nonsense in little motion, waiting for the little lady’s check to come in.
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1) The electronic voting machines are easy to use, and with the printout of one’s votes for verification, it is easy to tell that they were entered exactly as desired. They also allow for votes to be counted very quickly, helping to reduce the notoriously time-consuming counting processes of previous elections.
2) If the fear is voting machines are going to be “hacked” or that someone down the line will alter the votes in some way, it would have been just as easy for a group of vote-counters in the paper ballot era to conspire to count in favor of a certain party or individual. Also, the article compares the voting machines to ATMs, and I would argue that they are probably just about as secure. How often do we hear of people hacking ATMs successfully?
I have seen the proposal of scantrons a number of times, and if you think they would be a fool-proof answer to our voting woes, why are there so many warnings about using correct pencils and filling on the circles correctly and completely on every answer sheet? Because it is easy to mess them up. Scantrons would be sure to cause more counting errors that hanging chads ever could. Important standardized college level tests–the GRE, MCAT, etc. have moved from scantron format to computerized testing, and for good reason.
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Response to: “If you want peace, prepare for War”: You’re absolutely right. We dems always run an honest race!
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Slugger-
YOU are the problem with this whole election. The only way Obama made it to where he is is because non-African Americans have overlooked race. It is the extreme left that decided to put labels on everyone (your white, your black, etc.), that perpetuate the issue of race when the issue is no longer an issue for most, and continue to divide this country. With that said, things have unraveled to make this election ALL about race. Obama’s choice to stand with a pastor for some 20+ years who spewed out hatred towards whites, America, Israel, etc. is the reason why he isn’t pulling ahead of McCain in a year that favors heavily the Democrats. It is also the reason why people like myself are questioning why some 95% or more of blacks support Obama, regardless of his decisions in the past. Isn’t that racism? I would think the numbers should be more evenly distributed if racism wasn’t such an issue with blacks. And regarding the subject at hand, I am going to guess that if McCain does win this close election, there will be baseless accusations of racism, voting machine fraud, and the like, a drama all of which this nation is too familiar.
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b – It’s not just about one guy hacking one physical machine at a time to screw with the votes. If you have a touch-screen machine with no paper record, the manufacturer or someone working on it at some point in the line could alter the code running to give a person or party a bias and there’s no way to tell after the fact. Some of the problems with the Diebold machines were due to the poor way they certified them, and in some elections uncertified machines were used. Any electronic device used for elections should be an open platform – one that anyone can learn about and uses open-source code. It’s possible with digital signatures to ensure that what’s running on each machine is what is certified by the state. Even so, each machine needs a paper ballot the voter can see to verify that somewhere a concrete record of the vote exists that can be double-checked later.
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The touch screen is the most fool-proof. If my 85 year old Grandmother can do it, I have confidence that you can too! Also, this eliminates the possibility of “hanging chad,” by which the Democrats would use to try and figure out what they, and their friends at NBC, did to lose the election!
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Slugger, you always ruin what could be a good post by trashing one particular political party time and time again, and that is a real shame. Instead of showing off your intelligence you end up showing off your extreme biases. It’s your choice, but I think your points get lost out in the noise.
I bet Pia shows up now…
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I’ve voted both ways, and I much prefer the electronic devices. I’m guessing most people on here railing against them have never actually used them–the paper trail prints out underneath a clear cover that allows you to verify it is recording your vote correctly. I think it’s a lot harder to fill in a little circle and run it through a scanner. Not only does this take more time, but plenty of people won’t fill in the circle correctly, just like they couldn’t manage to use a Scantron properly back in school. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly found mistakes on a Scantron before.
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Voters should be able to log into a federal program on a computer using their driver’s license numbers and a ballot should pop up specific to their district/precinct, they should then be able to vote and have their vote counted. A print out of every vote should be received at a specified federal office so that there is a way to track the votes if there is a mal-function, or just a recount request.
Why does it have to be so hard?
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Our voting place has used punch cards for many, many years with no problems. I agree with Dave, a lot of idiots do not know how to follow directions and how to vote correctly, that is exactly what happened in Florida in 2000.
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With the scanned paper ballot, there are two audit trail summaries, and with the touchscreens, there are more. Both are electronic, and personally, I believe that both are at least as safe, if not safer, than the punchcards.
We will never be foolproof as a society as longs as our society has fools.
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As long as we’re voting for fools, what’s the difference?
Realistically, there’s always someone running a scam for something. Paper ballots can disappear. Electronic devices can possibly be ‘hacked’. As soon as someone comes up with a perfect way to vote, someone else will come up with a way to exploit it. I think electronic voting machines are reasonably secure enough to be used. They’re not hooked up to the internet, so it’s not like they could all be hacked for any given election. A hacker would have to go to each individual voting booth and hack one at a time, and they’d only be able to do one booth at each voting station and wait in line at each one. It might take them all day to screw with 10 voting machines.
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Until the fools stop voting I think the question about a foolproof method of voting is besides the point…
As far as the systems themselves, I suppose the electronic tabulation methods are the best. But no matter what is used or preferred there will always be shades of doubt…
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I prefer the paper ballot. In case of a problem, paper ballots can be re-examined and recounted. Without them, I worry that the computer system could crash or be corrupted by software designers. Trust, but verify.
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I like the touch sceen for exactly the same reason John suggests in his post. It’s quick, and I can see the printout when I vote.
The fact that machines run out of paper is not a defect in the voting method, it’s a defect in the preparedness of local election officials. The fact that unreliable machines are rotting in scrap heaps is simply evidence that, in a market environment, good products will drive out the bad products.
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If we all stop voting, will they (politicians)just go away?
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There is no such thing as a fool-proof method of voting. Nature, being God, or the Democrats can always produce a better fools. As proof, look at their fool who is running for President and the fools who will vote for him. Sad but true.
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You know I was tempted to answer this, but as my dear old dem pol stepfather used to tell me when I was
younger…there is a little larceny in every man’s soul.
This election’s finale should be interesting. Considering how many still don’t want a part african american as president, no matter how good is is, and no matter how crappy the head pale male dude is, I have no doubt that there will be much hanky panky afoot in this election. And considering that Obama had to put up a web site just to clarify the McCain’s camp’s many blatant untruths, it should get interesting as to how creative they will be to sway the election. No voting method is best when you have so much corruption wanting to continue their party’s bad rule for four more years. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies ’cause anything goes…anything goes!
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Hasn’t anyone paid attention when they voted here? In Missouri touch-screen machines are required to have a voter-verified paper record. That means it prints the results of your votes on paper for you to confirm before committing. So here, at least, the touch-screens offer easy counting with a manually auditable paper trail. This is not the case in other states, however, which is a big no-no in my book.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/
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“Which voting method do you consider the most foolproof?”
Just award the election to the dems, there is NEVER any chicanery involved as long as they win.
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Paper leaves a verifiable audit trail that is difficult to corrupt. Touch screen machines do not.
Touch screen machines were a stupid idea from day one. Typical of governments these days, moving to them was a knee-jerk response to a misstated and overblown problem, did little to address the supposed problem, and instead probably made things worse.
But they made a lot of money for those who sold the machines, and some of that money probably found its way into the pockets of some in government who influenced the decision to buy them.
If we were to eliminate from government all those who are either incompetent or corrupt (and many are both), who would remain?
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After two stolen Presidential elections and several stolen lesser elections it’s not a matter of foolproofing them but rather facist proofing them and that’s at sure as making America False Flag Proof (see 9/11). It can’t be done. It’s a matter of the sheeple waking up and demanding it and that’s unlikely to happen. After all look at all the people that still believe the Post to be a legitimate news source.
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When people create new electronic methods of doing things they never create equipment to test the machines. Another words, are they testing the machines accuracy with another test machine and who is testing that machine. It goes on and on. It seem that someone could do their homework and find a way to make these electronic machines usable. Someone really dropped the ball along the way. I personally say, give someone a pencil and a ballot and run it through a scanner. But then again, what are they using to calibrate the scanner?????
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I second Teresa “vote” for scantron. If you screw the ballot up, the scanner will tell you and give you a chance to correct it. But most importantly, there are real paper ballots, filled out by real voters to count again in the event of a challenge.
The electronic voting machines have no such fall back – you have to take what they say on faith. And to the people that say the electronic voting machines keep an internal paper log of the votes – it’s a machine, you can program it to make any “record” you want.
For a bit of humor – check out this link.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks
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I have worked nearly 20 elections in St. Louis City and St. Louis County. I am a younger fella with plenty of electronics skill/education, but my service dates back to the punchcards.
There are a ton of factors that all come together to make an election work, and each facet has to be followed by the voter in faith. Faith that the point of origination for materials is honest, faith in the printer for the written materials to be correct and accurate, faith in the “hired guns” who collect signatures to get an item or person on the ballot. There has to be faith in the fact that the poll workers are going to log you in correctly, and give you the correct ballot.
Personally, I think the electronic machines were a horrible waste of money, not because they don’t work, but because the old way worked just fine. I have no problem with any method of vote recording we have used at the poll level. And from what I know of the electronic equipment and the way that it works, in all reality, at the poll level, my biggest fear when it comes to the electronic equipment is not electronic sabotage, but rather physical sabotage. But I have no doubt that votes are being counted. In my case, it is a combination of faith in the process, and knowledge because I am involved, and educated in the process.
Everyone ought to work at least one election. They need the help, it is VERY eye-opening, and the education is well worth it… if you are serious about wanting to ensure that your vote counts. Cynics are welcome! And maybe you’ll be a little less cynical after you see how it works from the other side of the table.
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Scantron. That way you have the best of both worlds: a paper record and electronic counting.
I was a tally clerk once for a precinct of 2000 people voting entirely by paper. 4 marks down and one across. After a while your eyes glaze over…and though you are sworn not to add or forget to mark votes, we’re all human and imperfect. Computers are much better at counting little black ovals than people are. The modern education system runs on those little black dots– if it is good enough for a grade, it is good enough for voting. If you wanted the best of both worlds, a human could tally those Scantron sheets which the machine rejects, instead of declaring those ballots spoiled, but most people with any education at all are inured to filling in the little circles so the machine can read it.
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Knowing for sure that my vote has been counted is impossible, whether electronic or paper. It’s a leap of faith. On August 5, 2008, I chose electronic, and I got through it, feeling fairly comfortable that my vote would be counted. In the previous election, I chose paper. I suppose I was suspicious of the new/improved electronic device. I guess what Edison said is true, that restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress!
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There is no foolproof method for voting, just as there is no foolproof anything. Only a fool would think they can build something that is foolproof. We keep breeding better fools all the time. Unfortunately, those fools seem to get elected.
Paper ballots, punch cards, have a huge advantage over electronics. If you follow the rules, your vote counts – no more, no less, than any other voter. If you are an idiot, your vote will not count. Do we really think democracy is served by divining the intent of an idiot?
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I suggest a machine which is hooked up to a person so it can register brain and heart activity. This way the dead can no longer vote in cities like St. Louis and Chicago.
As for the already living continuing to vote. As long as democrats continue to lose where they think they should win, I don’t see any voting method being 100% foolproof.
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I had no problems with the old system, but I kind of like the new one too. I am not the most computer savvy person but I can live with the touch-screen.
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how do we know these “scanners” record the votes accurately????? Where does it end. nothing is fool-proof, especially humans. The electronic systems i saw had paper readout records too, but were they accurate??? how will we ever really know if anybody that ever gets elected was legitimate. I for one am in favor of voting in an online system…. but we can’t trust that either…can we?
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Can there ever be a foolproof voting method? Should there ever be a foolproof voting method?! How much effort should be put into ensuring that fools’ votes count? I am all for making sure that a given voting method is tamper-proof. But the hanging and pregnant chads and butterfly ballots in Florida? I have no problem with tossing out ballots that are not properly filled out. You have a right to vote, but a responsibility to vote correctly. The instructions are printed in clear, simple English. If you can’t follow them then your right to have your vote counted should be waived.
I vote for a show of hands.
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