SC League of Womens Voters questions voting machines

October 20, 2008

McClatchy-Tribune Information

South Carolina's League of Women Voters Sunday made clear its belief that using electronic voting systems is a mistake.

Eleanor Hills, of the Clemson Area LWV, laid out what she saw as flaws in the machines, their interactions with the humans who use them and the possibility of the loss and even creation of votes.

"It's a computer and that's what gives it the problems it has," she said. "You have to trust a machine. It's not really in the principle of American democracy to trust a third party." Hills gave different examples of problems discovered with voting system, though some seemed attributable to humans rather than to machines.

Elections Systems and Software supplies all voting machines used in South Carolina. The voting process includes casting votes on touch-screen machines (iVotronics), collecting of votes at the county level on computers (Unity) and reading of mail-in absentee votes on optical scan readers.

One source of information cited by Hills was an Ohio study.

On Dec. 7, 2007, a report was received by the Ohio Secretary of State which evaluated all voting machines used in Ohio. The machines used in South Carolina were among those evaluated. The report states, "Our analysis suggests that the (iVotronic machines) and optical scan systems lack the fundamental technical controls necessary to guarantee a trustworthy election under operational conditions."

Legislators in Colorado and Ohio have taken steps to ban iVotronic machines.

"Do you trust the iVotronics to be right all the time?" Hill asked. "No."

She went on to claim that there was no effective way to test if such a computer was going to work and compared it to Microsoft operating systems that have had faults.

She stated her belief that voting machines have been hacked in the past and have simply failed although she could not cite specific details or studies that came to these conclusions.

Previously, state election officials have denied any problem with the systems and claimed that the Ohio study only cited theoretical problems and it was very unlikely any device could be used to change or alter any vote.

Hill's major complaint, outside of possible fraud, was the lack of a permanent ballot.

"I think the answer is paper, I think we will have it," she said. "I think the machines we have will be outlawed in 10 years."

Source: Trading Markets