Dear Editor:
While voting at my local Elks Lodge in last Tuesday’s Primary, I was startled to find an electronic touch screen voting machine. As a voter I felt a little like the taxidermic trophies mounted on the walls. I’m all for progress, surely electronic voting is the future, but these machines are not ready for prime time. Hudson County has purchased machines from AVC Advantage, which is a better product that the Diebold machines rejected this last May in California. But the problem is that neither of these machines have a voter-verified paper trail. Until all voting machines offer voter verification, the credibility of our election results will be at stake.
The number of reports by computer scientists on the malfunctions and potential for hacking and foul play in these machines in no way inspires confidence. The manufactures are hiring and paying the bills for the labs doing the testing of these machines, a clear conflict of interest. It is easy to see how a company would put their proprietary interests ahead of truly rigorous testing that could kill a lucrative contract. To this date there is no Federal oversight to the testing process.
Voters should be demanding exactly what New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt has been advocating for over a year now; the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (H.R. 2239). With this bill you would see your vote printed on an ATM style scroll, which would advance when leaving the machine to protect your privacy. With Rush Holt’s efforts Hudson County should be following the example other precincts have set in protecting the legitimacy of our elections.
I am not actually so concerned with our local Superintendent of Elections or that Hudson County is going to hack the vote, as I am in seeing a national standard established. None of us need to be reminded of the messy presidential debacle of 2000. But a more ominous example, more relevant to our e-voting future is the 1988 Presidential election in Mexico. Known as “se cayo’ el sistema” – the day the system crashed, perhaps the first Presidential election stolen by computer fraud, now openly admitted by Mexico’s President Miguel de la Madrid. Is the credibility of U.S. democracy next?
Phil Huling