 "Photo: Lauren Niemcewicz")
Representatives of several citizens' groups met at the Capitol Tuesday to press for reforms in the use of electronic voting machines.
The event was part of "The Computer Ate My Vote Day," a nationwide effort by activist organizations to bring attention to electronic voting, which has fallen under increased scrutiny this year because of the upcoming November presidential election.
Harris County election officials reported malfunctions with the electronic voting machines during the 2003 municipal elections. Last week, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that two people filed a lawsuit against Diebold Inc. in November that alleges the machines make California elections vulnerable to hackers and software bugs. Last year, a hacker allegedly broke into Diebold's computer system and stole company software, internal memos and e-mails.
The Austin groups that rallied at the Capitol, which included Common Cause Texas and Drive Democracy, called for Texas Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor, whose office controls the statewide election process, to change the state's electronic voting machine certification process and include a paper ballot print-out to verify accurate voting.
Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, who was present at the meeting, said he is concerned about the safety of his constituents' votes.
"The current system in Texas can be better," Rodriguez said. "I cannot in good faith recommend these machines."
Madeleine Hervey, chair of Common Cause Texas's Electronic Voting Committee, said her group has collected more than 16,673 signatures from around Texas to have a backup system for machines, such as a voter-verified paper ballot. Hervey said her vote was lost during a computer malfunction in a 1998 Dallas election.
"With paperless machines, there cannot be a meaningful recount, and an audit is impossible," Hervey said.
Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, has studied the vulnerability of electronic voting machines. He said the voting machine certification process, which requires the state to test the function and design of the machines through "independent testing authorities," needs to be improved.
"There is strong agreement that the certification program doesn't work," Wallach said. "The first thing to fix is to get a better idea of what [the state] is certifying the machines for."
Connor said in a statement that Texas' voting system certification standards are among the most stringent in the nation and that abandoning electronic voting or implementing untested printing technology before the November elections would lead to voter confusion.
"I continue to have the utmost confidence in the direct recording electronic voting systems ... and have no intention of arbitrarily decertifying any of these systems without just cause," Connor said.
Thirteen counties in Texas use electronic voting machines. Travis County uses Hart InterCivic's eSlate machines, which were the same used in Harris County elections last year.
Be the first to comment on this article!