Electronic voting machines

This years elections are expecting record turnouts at the polls. As November 4th quickly approaches, concerns about counting votes accurately are being raised. After the Florida recount of 2000 confidence was lost in the country's voting system. State and county governments have taken measures to ensure accuracy at the polls.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 provided funds to replace punch-card voting systems. The old system has been replaced in many areas across the country with electronic voting machines to tabulate the ballots. These electronic voting machines have critics raising questions to the security of teh machines and their accuracy at counting votes.

"Electronic voting offers a safer way to have accurate votes," Mike Paradise, an intern for the Rudy Guiliani campaign, said. "There's no discrepancy over whether or not a vote counts. The election won't be left to a litle piece of paper hanging off the ballot."

Johnson county elections are conducted by touch-screen voting machines and these machines have the potential for inaccurately documenting poll results. This is due to the machines lack of a paper trail. After recording a person's vote onto a memory card, the vote's security is in the hands of technology. Electronic voting machines with no paper trail do not have a fail-safe way to recount the election results.

"I think the electronic voting machines will be more accurate than paper ballots," Paradise said. "I feel as though there are more pros than cons, especially from a younger generation's point of view."

Jamie Shew, Douglas County Clerk, wants to inform voters that their vote is secure and will be properly counted. This is because Douglas county does not use electronic voting machines.

"We do extensive testing prior to election day," said Shew. "We do some parallel-testing on election day and we do some post election testing."

With the electronic voting machines, it leaves room for human as well as computer error. Shew explained Douglas county votes are checked twice: through a person as well as a computer. If there is any conflict between the two numbers, an audit will be conducted.

While electronic voting systems seem to be a growing trend with the overwhelming promise of complete accuracy, Douglas county only offers electronic voting for voters with disabilities.

The only electronic voting systems that Douglas county use are designed to assist disabled voters. The AutoMark is a voter assistance terminal that both reads and records a voter's decision securely, while offering privacy at the polling location.

"We've been using this system since 2006," said Shew. "The Help America Vote Act dictated that you had to have a system that allows someone to cast a ballot securely."

The question of security poses a problem with switching to electonic systems.

"Since the systems are so new, I think the security is pretty tight," Paradisce said.

"We'll probably have to worry about hackers further in the future. Something as big as the vote for president, I can only imagine it will be kept under the lock and key of Fort Knox."

The ease of the system appeals to the younger generation while potentially confusing the elderly. "It's so much more convenient and easy for people of my generation," Nicholas Elster, Overland Park sophomore, said. "If my grandpa were to walk into a voting booth with a computer in it he'd probably turn around and walk out."

The U.S. Census found in 2006, the majority of voters fell into the age group of 55 and older; those who are most intimidated or don't know how to use a computer fall into the same age group.