This November, many Americans will encounter electronic voting
for the first time. Will it go smoothly? The primaries have
shown that problems with the new voting process are likely. So
election officials must be prepared, and have a backup plan.
With 9,500 voting jurisdictions in the country, and about half a
dozen vendors supplying electronic voting machines, it's not
possible to know how widespread problems will be.
But in a politically divided country, with control of both the
US House and Senate at stake and many races tight, it's certain
that the mechanics of voting itself will receive intense
scrutiny.
Elections around the country this year illustrate a wide variety
of problems:
*In the Maryland primary this week, officials forgot to include
electronic voter cards needed to activate machines in Montgomery
County - a suburb of Washington. Voting was delayed, and many
voters gave up. Backup provisional paper ballots were in short
supply, and in some cases, voters wrote down choices on scrap
paper.
*In Iowa, a local election looked to be running smoothly until
it was noticed that a college student was leading against an
experienced politician. The problem was a ballot-counting
malfunction with the new technology.
*In the Michigan primary in August, election officials counted
over 100 problems with electronic voting in Oakland County.
These problems ranged from machine jamming to rejected test
ballots. One election official complained about late delivery of
equipment from a vendor so busy that the programming wasn't done
properly.
Part of the problem is that states have been rushing to
introduce electronic voting to meet requirements of the 2002
Help America Vote Act. The act sprang from the Florida
ballot-counting debacle in the 2000 presidential election. The
act doesn't mandate electronic voting per se, but it says that
any state using HAVA money to modernize must provide systems
that are secure and reliable, and also accessible to disabled
people. This has been interpreted to mean a wholesale switch to
electronic voting.
A bipartisan report to the National Science Foundation in July
warned that "some jurisdictions - and possibly many - may not be
well prepared" for electronic voting in November. Issues of
reliability, usability, security, election-worker training, and
voter education "remain open and quite fluid."
In the short term, election officials must focus on contingency
planning for November. They should have plenty of provisional
paper ballots on hand. They should have technicians on call, and
even a few spare voting machines ready for quick delivery if
needed. They should be able to direct voters to other polling
places.
It's harder to size up the longer term. States now realize that
the cost of this new process is much larger than the initial
price tag. Twenty-seven states have mandated paper-verification
of electronic voting - an added, but worthwhile cost. Meanwhile,
voters in at least 12 states are suing to replace the new
technology.
It may turn out that primaries acted as a test run, and glitches
will be minimal by Nov. 7. But there's no question that Election
Day will serve as a moment of truth for electronic voting.
Election officials must do all they can to prepare for it
