In his column of Feb. 4, George Gilbert, director of elections for Guilford County, argued against a proposal by the N.C. Select Committee on Electronic Voting Systems to require touchscreen voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper trail. Gilbert implies that electronic voting is more reliable than paper, citing a survey in which those questioned expressed great confidence in such systems.
In the same issue, however, an Associated Press article indicates that many computer scientists think "paperless voting systems should be banned." These experts are concerned about "buggy software or malfunctioning hardware that could misrecord votes or expose voting systems to hackers, deletions or other disasters." Expert witnesses who have testified before the select committee agree that paper is the most reliable method of voting.
Gilbert acknowledges the serious problems with electronic voting when he reveals that a national task force he serves on has recommended that standards be developed "for scientifically sound, independently verifiable audit trails for DRE [direct record electronic] systems." His argument with the select committee is about the method of maintaining the integrity of our electoral system rather than the need to do so.
Lee Baker
Greensboro
Comments (3)
Voter fraud is still a bigger and more widespread problem than prospective technical errors with electronic voter machines. A jury has convicted Nonaresa Montgomery a paid worker of "Operation Big Vote " a Democratic scheme which resulted in thousands of fraudulent voter registrations in St. Louis.. It was a national program to register more black voters. One can only tremble at the thought that this has gone undetected in other parts of the country thus depriving all of us of a fair election by diluting our legally cast ballots.
Posted by BillyBatson | February 11, 2005 4:50 PM
Gilbert's response to the problems is inadequate, and his logic flawed. I wrote more about this topic at my blog, you can read it here.
Posted by Ed Cone | February 11, 2005 5:24 PM
Mr. Gilbert's assessment of BBV's (Black Box voting) is idealistic at best. There have been many allegations, some of which are still making their way through the courts, regarding these non-transparent machines.
In a country that is supposed to be the bastion of freedom, why do the elected leaders work so hard to NOT allow transparency in the voting process? Perhaps it is because if the curtain is pulled, the truth comes out. Diebold, ESS, Sequoia, etc, ad nauseum, are not required to have open software, nor are they required to have their machines certified by impartial panels.
Essentially, selling the vote to the highest bidder is entirely possible, under the current system.
There were too many shenanigans in our state this year to trust these buggy machines.
And Billy, BBV's have nothing to do with voter registrations. Funny that you didn't mention the company out of Nevada that registered Demcrats then threw away their registration cards. Funny that you didn't mention Ken Blackwell and his 80lb. weight paper requirement for registrations. There are plenty of shenanigans on both sides of the political divide. Understand that neither is innocent.
Posted by Bruce Burch | February 11, 2005 10:05 PM