WHAT IS IT?
Electronic voting machines have been in use in the United States since the mid-nineties. The three leading companies in the field are Diebold’s Premier Election Systems, Electronic Systems & Software, and Sequoia Voting Systems. The manufacture and sale of electronic voting systems is a niche industry, but it is still worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Traditionally, voting has been done either by marking a choice in pencil or pen on a ballot (which you’ll only really remember if you started voting in the late 1800s) or by mechanically punching holes in the ballot. Readers with the mental fortitude to recall the controversy following the 2000 presidential election without blacking out from sheer boredom will recall endless news footage showing poll workers holding ballots up to the light to examine wee chads dangling gently from what may or may not have been a vote.
The security and sanctity of the vote has always been a concern in the United States. Disenfranchisement based on class, race, or gender is a common theme in the history of American democracy. Ugly practices like the poll tax, literacy tests, or simple physical intimidation appear again and again. After every election, stories about votes by dead people, convicts, and noncitizens appear across the country. Voter fraud is surprisingly common, and it should come as no surprise—the stakes are high. The United States is the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the world. Seizing even a small part of the leadership of the nation is a historically significant achievement as well as being potentially lucrative. Power is seductive, and few things corrupt so fully as its pursuit.
Electronic voting machines were developed in response to the growing complexity of the voting process. Fifty years ago, a ballot might have featured a few names and one or two new laws for the voters’ consideration. Now, they carry dozens of candidates and a list of complicated and controversial social and political issues.
We can only benefit from easier-to-use, easier-to-understand voting systems. Electronic voting was supposed to deliver that—offering an interface as clean and simple as the ones we’ve become familiar with at the ATM. Technology offers the promise of access and security to everyone, regardless of age, ability, income, or education.
Unfortunately, the technology that has so far been deployed has failed to deliver on that promise. Electronic voting is plagued with error and controversy. The executives and officers of the companies that manufacture the machines display bizarre ethical flaws. Machines break. Votes are lost or manipulated. Supposedly secret, secure software is posted openly on the Internet. Responsibility for the vote has been, bit by bit, handed off to private corporations that have their own political motives. The secret ballot has become secret even from the person who cast it. Think your vote was counted in the last election? Think again. If you’ve used a touchscreen voting machine recently, you may soon come to regard hanging chads with a fond nostalgia.