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Return to Article: Voters confused by e-voting machines, study finds

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  This year City of Falls Church had a ballot machine with a turn dial, a next button, a back button, an enter button, and a cast ballot button. Talk about confusing. They showed us how to use the machine THREE tables before we actually got to the machine. Talk about backwards. It would have been more useful to show hands-on right before one goes to vote-not three tables beforehand. Also, the sum up was confusing at the end. I miss paper votes....technology is not always the best solution.

  Kathryn Posted November 4, 2008 2:32 PM
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  my only concern is trusting black box voting machine based on microsoft technology that do not have a paper trail. A voting machine that provides no paper trail is not one to trust, in my opinion. Especially when there are glitches that release early voting results because the software crashes.

  William Johnson Posted October 23, 2008 4:27 PM
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  Election officials are telling us that we should trust their choice to subcontract elections processes to private companies and that we should be satisfied even though the process is secret. These are untenable positions if democracy is going to continue in this country. It is time for election officials to:

  1. do their job and hire real independent experts in computer science rather than believing whatever voting vendor salespersons tell them; and

  2. admit that they made a costly mistake in purchasing Diebold DRE voting machines; and

  3. subject elections to valid independent scientific manual audits to make sure that Utah election outcomes reflect the will of voters; and

  4. stop keeping election procedures, records, and data in Utah secret in order to hide the evidence

  of problems with our elections systems and voting machines; and

  5. implement at least as stringent election security procedures as California requires.

  No reasonable person expects completely problem-free elections, but we do expect our election officials to make every effort to uncover and expose and correct the problems with our election systems and invite the public to help them oversee the integrity of the electoral process. Public elections should be open to the inspection of the public, by the public, and for the public which the Utah officials supposedly serve.

  Dan Stanton Posted January 29, 2008 7:00 PM
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  How did the researchers measure the "error rates" reported in their paper?

  I find it interesting that many people seem to accept the figures without any clue to how they were calculated.

  Stuart Wright Posted January 29, 2008 10:01 AM
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  Well, Dan, I guess you felt insulted by my comments. Tough! If you're looking for perfection, whether in machines or people you won't find it in this world. But to refuse to move forward because things aren't 100% perfect is the attitude of a person unable to deal with reality. By the way, if you knew your American History better, you would know that this is a representative republic, NOT a democracy. Check out B. Franklin's quote re that. Good Luck in 1776.

  ChristmasTree Posted January 29, 2008 9:38 AM
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  Your bombastity does not make you right. Electronic voting systems lack transparency, thus are not to be trusted. I personally am no technophobe, I probably have more gadgets than most. Secret Vote Counts are not smart. Ask the computer engineers who design those systems. They do not trust software driven systems for counting votes without rigorous and extensive audits to check for accuracy. Public oversight and close scutiny of elections is essential for democracy.

  Dan Stanton Posted January 28, 2008 5:33 PM
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  Sorry, Mr. Dan Stanton, this is 2008, not 1778! Most people use online banking, millions of dollars are transferred per minute in the various stock exchanges, GPS & radar control airliners, and you want to go back. Lotsa luck there! Encrypted programs can be designed to thwart the zillions of hackers out there to are trying to steal your one little vote. If it's sooo bad, just don't vote..

  ChristmasTree Posted January 28, 2008 4:02 PM
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  Every kind of electronic vote tallying is "faith-based voting" it relies entirely on the honestly and integrity of elections officials and election systems companies. It is Secret Voting Counting because computer software is not transparent. We need, and should be demanding transparency, with hand counted paper ballots at the precincts. If optiscans must be used; a 10% audit of ballots should be hand counted in all the precincts on election evening to check the accuracy of the machines. Ignorance is bliss, but does not foster or secure a democracy. We are in real trouble because elections officials will not give up their power voluntarily.

  Dan Stanton Posted January 28, 2008 2:43 PM
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  Once again, it's so simple! Show a brief video(mandatory)to all voters. Then, have a "demo" machine for those who need further training. Guess that this problem started decades ago when literacy was dropped as being discriminatory? Which party has the dumbest voters, we'll see..

  ChristmasTree Posted January 28, 2008 10:27 AM
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  I have been a poll worker for two primaries and one general election in my county of the state of Utah and I feel that we have a very good process in place for assisting the voter as well as the accuracy of the machine. The machine is a touch screen slab and is very easy to use with the paper backup. We also have had full training for each election for all pollworkers.

  I was a poll manager at the first primary that that were used and we had not only myself but also a person called a touch screen technican whose sole responsibility was to assist the voter.

  I can tell you that I made sure everyone knew how to use the machine and kept an eye on them to make sure that they didn't have any questions.

  Daniel R. Mott Posted January 28, 2008 10:20 AM
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  Seems to me the bigger question is whether voter errors with the new machines tend to skew toward one party or the other. If the errors patterns are fairly random (with about as many democrats, republicans and independents miscasting their votes), the errors will tend to cancel out even in a closely contested races. I'd also be curious to know how the 3% error rate compares was with the old manual voter machines...

  JJ Posted January 28, 2008 9:40 AM
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  Three per cent! I bet half those people just didn't read the screen. My electronic machines (Georgia) have a final screen that asks me to validate my choices. I can start over if I need to and change my original choices. Also, if people don't understand how to use the machines, why don't they call a poll worker over to help them. I really get tired of sheer stupidity!

  LAM Posted January 28, 2008 8:01 AM