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
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associate professor and head of the
Computer Information and Science
department. He added that those two
states do not look like they have
proper safeguards and may face
some of the same scrutiny as the
Bush-Gore election.
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
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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
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