A lot of states have the Optiscan machines, where you literally mark a paper ballot, and then it's scanned and the electronic machine counts the votes. But you at least have a paper record and then it can be audited. And I don't claim to have the ultimate answer, but my sense is that as a guiding principle, where, in a situation like that, you scan and then you have auditability, they should audit a statistically acceptable portion of those ballots to check and see if what the machine is counting syncs up with what's being done with the hand-counted ballots. If it doesn't sync up, you count all the ballots.
The real problem with a lot of the electronic machines, the touchscreen machines, is they either don't produce any paper or they don't produce paper that is treated as a ballot. It's just a paper trail that a person can check, but it doesn't become a ballot of record. The key is to have the auditability because it's already been shown that these machines... that the voter can intend one thing but it can easily be programmed to record another thing. Easy. And so the only check on that is a hand-counted paper ballot backup.
There's been a lot of exposure on electronic voting starting with the problems in the 2000 election. And since then there's increasingly been, slowly a little more that's come about...
... kind of rapidly, actually. It doubled from the 2000... the number of voters voting electronically doubled from 2000 to 2004. It really kind of ramped up, and it's increased a lot since then.
How do you see that trend playing out, since we're coming up on the big election in November? Do you see states increasingly shying away from electronic voting or are they basically just going with whatever system they already have in place right now?
Well, there's been a shift in that more and more states are requiring auditability, that it produce a paper ballot. And in general, states are starting to shy away from touchscreen machines, because they just have so many problems, their reputation is so bad. So in that sense I feel really optimistic. I'm seeing a shift, I'm seeing a more informed electorate. I'm seeing election officials respond to pressure from local election integrity groups that are saying, "We don't want these machines in our precinct." So I think it's going in the right direction and I think that's really encouraging.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Your interview would be a lot more interesting if you hadn't stuck to nothing but softball questions and fawning on your subject.
I'd have liked to see you ask him if he had any evidence at all that any voting machines had ever been hacked during an election (there is none) and perhaps hit him with some questions about the hundreds of thousands of bogus registrations from ACORN and other leftist groups, or perhaps the cash for votes practices of Democrats in a number of southern states.
But I guess that wouldn't suit your agenda, just as the media avoids reporting on election fraud in general because they know that any unbiased and halfway thorough investigation will reveal so much more fraud from the left than the right that it would be embarassing.
Think about it. All this furor about voting machines, yet it is the city and county and state electoral bureaucracies which are dominated by Democrats which have been the main supporters of the use of these machines.
Partisans like the people who made this film have identified a legitimate problem, but they need to come to grips at some point with the reality that if there is fraud going on, it's much more likely to be their political allies who are doing it.
Dave
2 - David R. Perry
Dave,
I'm assuming that you haven't actually watched said movie. I would recommend it (it's available via Netflix, by the way; in case anyone here subscribes), as I found it very interesting, and many of the criticisms you mention are dealt with in more detail there. I was not attempting to rehash every point or claim of the film.
Granted, the film has an admittedly obvious leftist bent to it, but I think it's ridiculous to criticize the main thrust of the film, which deals with the need for more accountability and checks and balances in the voting process. That is something that only benefits a real democracy. Your quibble seems to be with "why" they're looking into it in the first place, which is less important.
If you'd like to ask your own questions, the production company seems fairly open to media inquiries. Perhaps you can help fill in the blanks of the discussion.
By the way, your critique would be more interesting if you didn't exhibit an obviously equal, but opposite, agenda. (Agendas come from both sides, you know.)
- DRP
3 - Dave Nalle
Well, I'd normally take a middle course, but when dealing with a partisan position I'm naturally inclined to take the opposite one.
I've done a lot of reading on the voting security issue == things like actual academic studies -- but there's so much propaganda out there that I'm reluctant to watch a film. The format is much easier to use for propaganda and distortion in the grand Michael Moore tradition.
These things are getting on cable, though. So when it does I'll be all over it.
Dave
4 - John
The bias is so overwhelmingly against Republicans that the film is self- discrediting.