Debate: Electronic Voting

There are many controversial topics in this politically correct world. There are topics about morals, standards, and personal ethics. One of the newest debatable subjects however, is the one concerning this new centuries way of casting an individual's vote, through electronic voting. Electronic voting is a way to cast a person's ballot using an electronic voting machine that is touch screen. There are many advantages to using these machines during an election but there are also many disadvantages to using them as well. Before a person can make their own judgments on this subject it is important to understand and view both sides of the argument.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been put forth to upgrade voting systems all around the country, and most of the money going to going to paperless e-voting systems. A study by Election Data Services indicates that 50 million voters, or about 28 percent of the voting population, used such electronic voting systems in 2004. This is about twice as many more than voted electronically in the previous election (Boyle). These numbers are important to understand the experience that this new way of voting has been used. Not even half of the voters have used the machine so before our country changes the system of voting they need to know how this small percentages voting is affected and how accurate and safe it truly is.

Many people, who support the newest electronic voting machines, are people who remember the year 2000 elections. In those elections there were many problems, tons of the paper ballots had not been punched through properly, and so could not be counted. The lack of a clear cut winner made it even more controversial throughout the country. According to the Voter Technology Project six million votes could not be counted because of the errors. Many elderly people reported having had trouble putting the holes in the proper space while voting. Another problem found while voting in that particular election was the voting places made it difficult to cast a persons vote. There were also numerous rumors going around that poll workers were involved in fraudulent activities to support the candidate of their choice. All of these reports and rumors brought on the idea to start voting electronically and eliminate paper technicalities.

Supporters understand that electronic voting is not flawless but it is still more perfected than the old way of voting on paper. One person believes that electronic voting is the safest way to vote today. No ballots can be misplaced and there is no need for poll workers to help a voter out by looking over the voters shoulder, then making changes where necessary (Voting Technology Project). People are looking to protect their privacy and make sure that there vote is one of the votes that really count. The problem is that it is not safe to have a paper or receipt type thing printed out for a voter, this type of thing could lead to a wide spread buying of votes by the separate sides. Buying votes is obviously something neither side wants to see happen.

Many groups opposed to electronic voting want a paper print out like a receipt that could be used for recounts. The request does not seem absurd but returning to this paper system introduces some new complications, among them: What happens on Election Day if the printers fail, as printers often do? How do poll workers and voters prevent tampering with the paper ballots? These questions do not have strong enough answers to make companies add printers to the machines. The main reason there is a demand for the electronic voting system is because of the rumors of fraud with the older paper ballots.

The government has passed the Help America Vote Act, after the 2000 elections voting problem occurred. The act set aside the money to help fund the purchasing of new and improved voting equipment (Voting Technology Project). Some of the major improvements with touch screens or simple dials and buttons also known as the electronic voting system, is that they allowed people with disabilities to vote in private, without an election worker doing it for them, as the paper ballot way had required. In addition, electronic voting machines also made it easy to produce ballots in multiple languages in areas with large immigrant populations. Orange County, in California programmed their electronic voting machines with five different languages. With so many improvements many were able to vote for the first time (Ladendorf). One of the most important benefits of electronic voting is that votes would be counted much faster, and it would eliminate room for the human error factor, which on paper ballots is inevitable (Ladendorf).

The strongest support and example of the electronic voting comes from the recent elections. This year, 2004, had some of the highest voter turn out in a long time. Although so many people voted and many on electronic voting or touch screen machines, there was one clear cut winner and there was no problem in the voting. Both sides agreed that President Bush had won a fair and competent election. Electronic voting may not be perfect yet but it worked well enough, and did not have hacking or bug problems as skeptics had predicted it would (Ladendorf). In fact the 2004 elections were some of the smoothest and most clear cut elections that the United States has had in recent history, to many that should be proof enough.

Electronic voting is one of the most current controversial subjects to date, so as such there are two sides both with their own excellent points. Both the supporting and opposing sides should be examined before a person can say which one they believe in. There are many groups endorsing these causes they each propose that there is way is the right or best way. The opposing side has come up with a very strong campaign.

What the opposing side is concerned about is that the electronic voting machines do not have the adequate security procedures or auditing procedures in place at this time, and it is something that needs to be improved. With the machines, especially the ones that do not even produce a paper ballot; there is really no way to make sure that the voting machine recorded the vote accurately and that it will be counted. Added to that there is also wide spread knowledge of the machines having security flaws that are significant and would most likely lead to tampering of the votes that had been cast in the machines. Another problem is the involvement of programmers involved in the company who was in charge of Georgia's electronic voting has criminal backgrounds tied to their name (Boyle). So when you put all of those things together, the opposing side is asking for improved security and auditing procedures to make sure that the people's votes are counted as they are cast it.

Before the most recent elections in 2004 a group of women put up