Paper trail for voting machines

Electors need to know if their ballots registered correctly and there must be a meaninful count in case of disputes

The back cover of Brave New Ballot, a new book on the young and controversial subject of electronic voting, promises dramatic revelations: 8220;Aviel Rubin, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a specialist in systems security, knows something the rest of us don8217;t. Maybe we suspected it, maybe we8217;ve thought it, but we didn8217;t have proof. Until now.8217;8217;

Declaring that 8220;democracy has never been more vulnerable,8217;8217; the book sells itself as something more than a summary of the bitter battle that has unfolded in recent years: computer scientists and activists who argue that electronic voting machines are vulnerable vs. machine vendors and election officials who say the systems are safe. Brave New Ballot Morgan Road Books, 24.95, released this fall, comes as the vast majority of the American public will use electronic voting machines in November8217;s midterm elections8212;many for the first time. And primaries this year in Maryland and other states have shown that electronic voting can cause election chaos.

The book begins with author Aviel D. Rubin8217;s revelatory report three years ago on the computer code that ran a popular voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems. The report, which said the machines were designed sloppily and open to tampering, propelled Rubin and the topic of electronic voting into national news. From there, Rubin tells how a 8220;reluctant activist8217;8217; became a 8220;crusader8217;8217; against electronic voting, weaving his argument about why the machines are so problematic into the story.

But while Rubin, who has a PhD in computer science, delivers an engrossing narrative about the intersection of politics, the media, academia, corporate America and technology, in many ways he falters in the presentation of his views on voting machines, the voting industry and the election process. His stance on electronic voting consists of arguments you have heard before, whether you are a believer, a naysayer or a curious outsider.

When he clears away the clutter, though, Rubin presents a lucid argument that the machines are flawed. He also offers a solution. In electronic voting, Rubin explains, voters select their candidates on a touch screen. That information is stored on a disk in the machine, and at the end of the day the data are sent to a central computer that tallies the votes.

Look, he says: Voters have no way of knowing that their votes were recorded the way they intended, and if elections are disputed, as they inevitably are, you can8217;t have a meaningful recount without a paper record. His fight for paper records8212;now required by 27 US states8212;is covered amply in the book. Sure, Rubin says, the vendors say the machines are reliable, but when lots of experts say that8217;s not true, can you believe the companies when they8217;re so secretive about how their machines operate? 8220;Machines must be completely trusted not to fail, not to have been programmed maliciously, and not to have been tampered with,8217;8217; he writes.

Rubin8217;s solution is to add a step: After voters enter their choices on the touch screen, the electronic voting machine should print out a ballot showing voters8217; choices. Voters could make sure the machine had registered their choices correctly, and if there were a dispute officials could count the paper ballots.

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Rubin acknowledges that he has undergone an evolution in thinking about how the real-world use of the technology differs from tests in labs8212;not least of which because, as a poll worker, he saw that many voters like the machines, and that they are often easier for disabled people to use.

Rubin ends the book with a lecture on the virtue of dissent in democracy, sounding more like a professor of political science than of computer science. This soliloquy and other references to the 8220;totalitarian8217;8217; and 8220;Orwellian8217;8217; acts of election officials distract from his core argument that the country8217;s election systems are broken and need fixing.

8212;Washington Post / Zachary A. Goldfarb