The 2000 presidential election in Florida was a real mess. Poorly maintained
punch-card ballots left "pregnant," "dimpled," and "hanging chads," which were
difficult to recount.

Thus HAVA was born in 2001. Officially called the Help America Vote Act,
it has become known to many as the "Hack America's Vote Act," allowing partisan
electronic voting machine vendors such as Diebold Election Systems and ES&S
to count our votes in increasing secrecy.

HAVA sounds like it would help voters. It calls for voting machines to be accessible
to people with disabilities and allow for people to re-cast their vote if they
make a mistake. Many, including election officials, think that HAVA requires
the purchase of electronic voting machines. This is not true; there are other
voting devices that allow handicapped voters to cast a vote privately and without
assistance.

Although we support making it easier for those with disabilities to vote, we
do not think that electronic voting systems are the answer. There are many problems
with electronic voting systems that other electronic systems share. Have you
ever had these problems with your computer?

• Lost data
• Power outages
• Glitches
• "Bugs"
• User errors
• Printer jams
• Crashing
• Trojans, viruses, or spyware
• Hacking

Many of these problems can happen with any electronic device. Others, such
as hacking and viruses, are caused intentionally.

Another problem with these voting systems is that the programming and counting
are conducted privately and in secret by the vendor-out of sight of voters and
election officials, which is against the law.

Some election jurisdictions, such as Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas,
use Direct Recording Electronic (DREs, or touchscreen machines) that do not
produce a paper record of what the voter selected. In Missouri, however, state
HAVA law dictates that all voting systems produce a VVPAT (Voter-Verified paper
Audit Trail). Does a "paper trail" really make electronic voting 100% safe?
Sadly, the answer is "no."

A paper receipt gives voters a false sense of security. Few voters would question
the outcome of an election if they were satisfied that their individual votes
were counted correctly. However, there are many reasons why a printed receipt
does not necessarily mean much:

• It is possible to program a computer to count one thing but print another.
• Voters do not get to take the receipt home to verify that their votes were
  counted correctly.
• Printers jam and run out of ink and paper.
• The DRE is only one place where a counting error takes place. The central
  tabulator (for example, the Diebold GEMS tabulator) is where all the votes
  from all the precincts are compiled, including scanned ballots completed with
  a pen or pencil. The tabulator is vulnerable to hacking and glitches, and
  voters do not have a printed receipt from it, nor do they have the access
  needed to verify its results.
• Most concerning is that receipts are printed on a roll of paper-much like
  a toilet paper roll-allowing a voter to see the previous person's votes. Since
  the votes are in sequence, it is also possible to match votes with voters.
  In both cases, this may be illegal. By law, votes cast are required to be
  private.

"Paper trails" are a start, though, and a step in the right direction. Alone,
they do not protect our votes.

The other type of voting machine is the optical scanner. With it, a voter marks
his or her choices on a paper ballot and feeds the ballot into a scanner. The
votes still wind up in the same place-a central tabulator, which is extremely
vulnerable to hacking. With an actual ballot, though, at least there is a hard
copy to hand-count in the event of a recount or power outage.