E-Voting Activists: Vote Absentee?

By Kim Zetter?

Activists in two states launched campaigns to urge voters to cast paper absentee ballots in their March primaries, warning that the electronic, paperless voting machines used in those states are open to fraud and may not count votes accurately.

The California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan voter education organization, and the Campaign for Verifiable Voting, a Maryland citizens group, cited concerns about insecurities of the electronic voting systems and the lack of paper audit trails to assure voters that their ballots are cast and counted correctly.??

In the past year, as more states and counties have replaced paper-based voting machines with electronic touch-screen models, security experts have found many vulnerabilities. In Maryland, which is using machines made by Diebold Election Systems, computer scientists discovered they could hack into the devices and change the final tallies without leaving a trace. Problems have been found with machines from other vendors

Maryland activists sent a letter to their state and county boards of elections to demand that officials give voters the option of using paper ballots on Election Day. Unlike California, where voters can request a paper ballot if they feel uncomfortable voting on electronic machines, Maryland voters cannot vote by paper.

Activists in California failed to win a temporary restraining order on Tuesday that would have forced counties to add safeguards to protect the e-voting machines from hacking. The activists also sued to stop the state and Diebold from using "insecure" voting machinery.

Fourteen counties in California will be using electronic voting systems on March 2. They comprise 40 percent of the state's electorate, according to California Voter. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated in December that all machines provide a voter-verified paper record by July 2006. But until that takes effect, California Voter President and founder Kim Alexander said, "Our advice is to cast your votes on paper."

"Some people have asked why we're acting now," Alexander said. "It's because 40 percent of our voters now live in e-voting counties. We have a number of counties using e-voting systems for the first time in this election. And we learned that at least 17 counties used uncertified software in the recall election and many of those are counties where there is no paper backup of the digital ballot."

In December, California officials discovered that Diebold had violated state election laws by placing uncertified software in 17 counties that were using its machines. County and state officials failed to monitor what the vendor was installing on machines.

Alexander said that in places where machines provide no paper trail voters just have to trust the vendors and counties to follow the law and procedures.

"We know for a fact now that at least 17 counties failed to do so," Alexander said. "That has profoundly shaken my confidence in the voting systems. I and most voters would prefer to believe that we can trust our counties and the voting vendors to faithfully follow the procedures, but that would be misplaced faith at this point."

Voters in California have until February 24 to mail in their request for an absentee ballot. Once they receive the ballot in the mail, they can either mail it back or hand deliver it to polling places on Election Day. Voters who don't meet the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot can request a provisional paper ballot normally used by voters whose names aren't on registration rosters on Election Day because they recently relocated.

Backing up the call for paper-based voting, a movie theater marquee in Oakland, California, where touch-screen machines will be used citywide, urged pedestrians and drivers passing by to go the paper route as well.

California Voter is also calling on citizens to report any problems they witness with the voting machines to the secretary of states toll-free hotline, 1-800-345-VOTE.