If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Brantford, ON. “The internet is influencing a demographic,” says Phil McColeman, Brantford’s representative for the Conservative party. With the Canadian Federal Election held on October 14th, 2008 and on November 4th the United States’ presidential elections, it is truly a momentous occasion, with astounding geopolitical, economic, social, and environmental issues in the mix.

But for what and whom both sides of the border vote is a discussion for another time. The question here is how do citizens actually vote? When it boils down to the mechanics of how people physically cast their vote, can we really place trust in our vote and subsequent future in the hands of technology?

With the rise of technology and the internet, the United States has implemented electronic voting machines on a mass scale. “We need to realize that as the teenage generation matures, we need to have people champion these thoughts and weave it into the election,” says McColeman.

In a 2005 report entitled, "Elections: Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems are Under Way,” by The Government United States Accountability Office stated: Direct Recording Electric (DRE) are systems that include hardware, software, and firmware used to define ballots, cast and count votes, report or display election results, and maintain and produce audit trail information. DREs are able to capture votes electronically- without the use of paper ballots. DREs come in two basic models: pushbutton and touch screen. In general, the interface with the voter is very similar to that of an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

In the United States, in 2002, the Help America Vote Act mandated that one handicap-accessible voting system be provided per polling place, which most jurisdictions have chosen to satisfy with the use of DRE voting machines, some switching entirely over to DRE. In 2004, 28.9% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system, up from 7.7% in 1996.

Electronic voting in Canada by contrast, has been used in many cities since the late 1990s at the municipal level, and there have been increasing efforts to introduce it at provincial level. In Ontario 2003, from November 5th to the 10th, twelve municipalities from the Prescott Russell, Stormont Dundas, and Glengarry Counties held the first full municipal and school board electronic elections in North America using either the Internet or with the telephone but no paper ballots. Traditionally, Canada has used the standard form of voting consisting of a ballot and a pencil.

But not everyone is convinced electronic voting is the way to go. “Why spend money to buy a spicy piece of technology, if the standard way of voting is fair and without any problems,” said John O’Neill, owner of Audio-Tronic in Brantford, Ontario.

Nora Fueten, a representative for the Green Party in Brantford Ontario stated, “It is so important for votes to be accurately reported. Why get rid of the standard way, the way we trust? There are always glitches in technology that we must take into consideration. Having a secure system is essential for democracy.”

And in fact, there are some serious problems. Congressional Research Service's Report for Congress from 2003 entitled "Election Reform and Electronic Voting Sytems (DREs): Analysis of Security Issues," stated: “The most well known attack targets are computers with direct internet connections that hackers can exploit.”

The report continues on to explain essentially that an attacker who gains physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code. Malicious code on a machine can steal votes undetectably. Hackers would have access to modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consisted with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also initiate a “voting machine virus,” in which the virus would spread silently undetectably from machine to machine during a normal election.

On the other hand, “Electronic voting machines would be paper efficient. It is environmentally friendly as it saves the use of paper for making ballot papers, printing costs and the making of ballot papers,” says Green Party volunteer David H. Clemons.

Overall, there are many pros and cons with regards to electronic voting machines. Society must consider many factors such as: glitches, security, and environmental friendliness. Electronic voting must be studied and carefully tested before it can be implemented in society.