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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 2004)
Electronic voting has potential security flaws Disabled voters in Oregon will use the e-ballots, although mail-in ballots have proven more reliable BY ANTHONY LUCERO NEWS REPORTER With the presidential election only a month away, feafs from 2000’s elec tion may remain in the minds of some voters, who may still remember terms like “pregnant” and “dimpled” chads and the havoc caused by ballot mistakes and recounts. This year, vot ing systems are under increased scrutiny, especially as some states in stall new electronic voting systems. In Oregon, electronic voting is not the method for casting votes, though counties use electronic systems to tally the votes. Mail-in ballots were used in I """ ' ... " ... . the 2000 presidential election, when Oregon achieved the second-highest level of voter turnout with 78.9 percent of registered voters casting a vote, beat only by Wyoming, which had an im pressive 97.1 percent turnout, accord ing to the Federal Election Committee. However, disabled voters in Oregon will still cast electronic votes as part of the Help America Vote Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. If the race remains as close as it is currently, votes in battleground states like Ohio and Florida that use elec tronic voting will decide the next president, said Michal Young, 020286 meetuo.com Welcome to UO's online dorms “Best Meal for a Deal/ 2nd Place,“Best Omelette. 2nd Place, “Best Breakfast" 2nd Place, “Best Vegetarian Fare” 2ad Place; Register-Guard Reader Poll, 1987. * Best EpPtrfjpito imp mLmzma JLg “Best Breakfast," in Town j|o|y|9r|TlftTo Ten Choice, Oregon Daily Wiimfitiu, jfsfyS ^ciesvEtnoie* efore 9 Comic Take Visitors When You Pay,” 1st Place “Best Break tast,"lsj. 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Last year, Young said he participat ed in an electronic voting seminar at the University’s CIS department that addressed electronic ballot systems and how to improve them. “We were interested in how the electronic voting system works and the distinction between reliability and security — reliability not a guar antee of security,” said Young. “It stops being just an interesting tech nological problem but a terrible polit ical issue facing us.” Young said the problems are myri ad in regard to electronic votes. He said Direct Recording Electronic voting systems such as Diebold or Sierra (the two largest market hold ers) have security flaws, are closed system, which means they are not available for the public to assess their accuracy, and, in some counties, con tain no paper trail to match with elec tronic ballots. Young believes Oregon’s mail-in voting system is one of the best op tions available. Unlike an electronic system where large-scale fraud can occur in a closed DRE system that would be virtually untraceable, the mail-in system would at worst spur household fraud where one member of the family casts votes on other family members’ ballots. Citing a California Technical Insti tute/Massachusetts Institute of Tech nology study titled “Residual Votes Attributable to Technology,” Young said the mail-in system is the best vote-recording method, second only to old-fashioned marked ballots where voters “X” a box beside their choice for candidate, in terms of residual ballots. Residual ballots are those cast but not counted due to bal lot mistakes or ones that show no preference. However, Americans should not only be worried about electronic vot ing, according to Priscilla Southwell, associate dean of social sciences in the Political Science department. “We still need to think about the other issues, like disenfranchised votes, ballots thrown out after*mis takenly believed to be cast by felons and voter registration cards not being filed correctly,” Southwell said. 11 01011 0101 010111 0101 1010 10101 1010110 1 100010101010101 0110 101 1001010 10100101 11010 0101 10001 0 1 01010 11010 10101 10 1 1010 101 10101 10101 1010 11 011 ■ RESIDUAL VOTES A Caltech/ MIT study found that technology, in part, contributes to residual votes that are not properly cast. Residual votes are votes where no candidate is picked by choice or the voter misunderstood how to fill in the ballot. Residual votes as a percent of all ballots for different types of voting systems: Source: Caltech/MIT "Residual Votes Attributable to Technology” Young had similar sentiments, say ing that the problem is not only with the system used to tally ballots and its legitimacy, but also if voters be lieve the outcome is fair. Sophomore Sharie Grant’s con cerns as a voter echo what many Americans are anxious about in this presidential election. Machine Type Paper ballot Lever machine Punch card • "Votomatic" • “Datavote" 1988 1992 2.2 1.4 2.0 1.5 2.9 2.2 3.7 2.4 1996 2000 2.1 1.3 1.7 1.7 2.6 3.0 2.1 1.0 1.5 1.2 2.9 1.6 1.5 2.7 2.1 2.0 Optically scanned 2.5 2.4 Electronic (DRE) 3.5 2.5 Mixed 2.1 1.4 Overall 2.5 2.0 “I think people should worry about (another problem similar to Florida in 2000) in every election,” she said after she finished registering to vote outside the Knight Library. “We need to think about anything that could go wrong.” anthonylucero@dailyemerald. com virtual Offline Systems - SupPUes * (W &?°'o<7X>&ir * Accessories . T Motherboards. 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