The Hazards of E-voting Essay -- Democracy Voting Internet Essays

The Hazards of E-voting A democracy can only be effective when it runs efficiently, when the will of the people is transmitted through the corridors of power. It can only hit its zenith if the most important function of democracy, voting, is carried out flawlessly. Although flawlessness has never been achieved, men have certainly tried to keep the voting system as efficient as possible, with the least possible amounts of votes being lost or mis-counted. Human error is of course, uncontrollable. This error combined with the partiality of all humans, prompted the development of machines that would register, store and count the ballots which were cast. Electronic voting, or e-voting, soon found advocates and lots of opposition. Many in the opposition thought of this idea as ephemeral, how could one entrust democracy to an imperfect machine? A Diebold E-vote Machine As the last election showed, e-voting has gained a strong foothold in the US. Twenty-eight out of the fifty states1 in the US used e-voting machines in some counties. This accounts for about 30 percent of U.S. voters on November 232. Nevada and Maryland3 used the machines in all counties. Do the advantages of using a machine, outweigh the potential hazards of using a device which can be manipulated or hacked into? Grant Gross, from IDG News Services discusses the shortcomings. "Voting security advocates have raised dozens of concerns about direct electronic recording machines. Among the complaints about DREs: Some of the back-end vote- counting tabulators can easily be hacked; some smart cards that provide access to the machines can be faked; and votes can be lost when machines crash, as computers sometimes do."4 The security issues wi... ...ean Union has funded a 3.2 million euro, three-year pilot program to use e-voting in three local elections, one in France and the other two in Germany and in Sweden. More than 1 million Estonians will be ready to vote via the Internet in 2006 local elections. Yet it appears that the people managing these systems do not understand the great risks involved with e-voting. It seems that the motives behind this exodus towards e-voting in Europe, is more political then technological. "They are politicians wanting to look tech savvy."9 Whether e-voting is the way in which Americans will choose their leaders in the coming years, is an issue that can only be decided by their increasing amount of usage in coming years. References 1 and 2 The Industry Standard 3,4, PC World 5, 6 Washington Post 8 Computer Weekly.com 9 MSNBC- The age of E-voting