Electronic Voting: A Proposal to Make it Secure and Honest

by Tom Lowe

I came across www.votescam.com a few days after I used one of the new touchscreen computers to vote. The web site, based on the book Votescam by journalists James and Kenneth Collier, relates their experiences in 1970 when Kenneth ran for congress against Claude Pepper, a powerful Democrat. It was a deeply disturbing read, sufficient to shake one's faith in the electoral system.

It was that bad.

After reading how the votes were literally stolen in the 1970 election, it occurred to me how easy it would be to steal the vote in Hinds County with the new touchscreen voting machines. The software is proprietary, which means that not even the officials that purchased the machines have any idea how they work and whether the vote count is correct. The poll workers must trust the machines to be honest, because there is nothing they can do other than follow the manufacturers' instructions. And lastly, it appears that the corporations that make most of the electronic voting machines in our nation are heavily connected politically with the Republican Party.

This does not inspire a nose-holding Green/Democrat that his vote counted last week.

I therefore propose an electronic voting system that is reasonably honest, with built-in checks and balances to prevent the technocrats from designating whomever they want as the winner.

The Specifics

Here are minimum specifications which should form the basis of an "Electronic Voting Act of 2003."

1. All software, from the top to the bottom--from the voting machine to the computers that tabulate the totals--must be open source. If you are not familiar with the concept, "open source" the term means that all programs used in an election must be available for testing and examination by the public, including the "source" code written by programmers. Windows and Macintosh operating systems, being proprietary, wouldn't qualify. Probably an open source variant of Unix would qualify, like FreeBSD or Linux.

2. When a voter signs his name on the voter sign-in sheet, he or she is given a bar-coded chit which the voter takes into the voting both and either inserts or swipes into the voting machine. The voting machine then presents the voter with choices of candidates for each race which the voter chooses either by a pressing a touch screen or pushing buttons on a keyboard.

3. When the voter has finished and presses the "finished" button, the voting machine prints out two (2) ballots containing in plain English each position contested and the name of the candidate chosen by the voter. The voter checks the ballot to make sure his or her choices are correct and then presses the "transmit" button which will store the vote and could possibly open the curtains to the voting booth.

4. After exiting, the voter places one ballot into a ballot box and keeps the other ballot. The serial number of his ballot, read from the chit, is printed on both ballots and is stored in the voting machine. The actual chit is punched with a hole and will no longer work.

5. By law, a voter's chit and the voter's identity cannot be associated in any way. Therefore, the voter probably should draw his chit at random from a bowl.

6. At the close of voting, the poll workers read the totals from the voting machines and report them the regular way to the Secretary of State and whomever else they are required to report. The ballot boxes are sealed. Any unused chits remaining must be swiped through the voting machine, which will record them as void, and placed in the ballot box.

7. Here's the big step: the database in each voting machine containing the votes of each voter by serial number, date, and time of voting must be copied to diskette and immediately transmitted or physically transported to the office of the Secretary of State, which will publish within seven days on the Worldwide Web every vote in the State of Mississippi, by county and precinct, with each ballot identified by serial number, including the void ballots, and including the exact date and time the ballot was cast.

8. Any person can examine any ballot, including his own through the web. If the electronic ballot fails to match his printed ballot, then he can sign an affidavit to that effect and the physical ballot box must be counted, with each ballot recorded by serial number.

9. Unless there are severe problems or discrepancies with the vote, seven days after the Secretary of State publishes the ballots on the Web the elections will be declared closed and the winners officially designated.

Strengths:

The voters can be virtually certain that their votes are properly counted;
Any hacking on the computer side will show up when voters compare their printed ballots with the state web site
The system relies upon the honesty of poll workers, which is, of all the classes of persons involved, the one least monetarily interested an a particular outcome.

Weaknesses:

Some voters might be put off by the complexity of the system.
When it is known that voters keep a copy of their vote, it would be easy for employers to demand to see their ballot and to exert pressure on the employee to vote for the preferred candidate. On the other hand, the voter could be given only his chit with his serial number on it.
Purchasing of votes would be facilitated, since the "purchaser" would have proof positive that the voter voted as agreed.
It would be possible for poll workers to vote unused chits and to sign names from the voter rolls to prove up the number of total voters. Persons accessing the state web site could tell if their vote is missing or altered, but would not be able to tell whether other votes were forged or not. Again, of all the groups involved in elections, it is probably better to trust poll workers than any other group. If the exact date and time of the vote are also recorded, a sudden surge in votes for one candidate at the last moment would be easy to spot.

Other possibilities:

Put all the voting machines online and transmit each submitted vote instantly to the state office. This would make it far more difficult to electronically or physically stuff a ballot box, since the vote, once recorded, would be impossible to change on the precinct level. It is important, however, that the voting machine not transmit voting data until the voter has reviewed the printed ballot and confirmed that his or her vote is properly recorded.
Allow anyone to download the entire database of ballots from the Secretary of State's office. Since only the voter knows his or her serial number, anonymity would not be compromised.

Conclusion

This arrangement, or something similar, would vastly improve the system and our confidence in the system, I believe. Suggestions and criticisms are always appreciated and, in this case, strongly invited.