A Great Leap Backward

A Great Leap Backward

by Mark Luedtke

I first used an electronic voting machine in 2006. I inserted my magnetic voter card and entered my votes on the touch screen, one time accidentally selecting the wrong candidate and backing up to change that vote. When I finished voting, I verified all my votes on the touchscreen. After that, the machine printed all my votes on a piece of paper for me to verify. When I was done, I returned my voter card and the paper tally to the proper boxes. I had created 2 separate records of my vote: one electronic, one paper. Piece of cake.

Electronic voting machines that produce a paper trail are a tremendous leap forward in vote security because these machines provide redundant vote counts. The electronic tally should always be compared against the paper trail tally and any discrepancies rectified to determine the final vote count. In order to corrupt these redundant vote counts, a crook must corrupt both the electronic tally and the paper tally, which is significantly more difficult than corrupting just one count, be it electronic or paper.

Redundant machines provide a significant improvement in vote security over either paper ballots or an electronic counts alone. But because of a study showing that these machines can be hacked, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has dictated that every county using voting machines also supply paper ballots in the March primaries, even though paper ballots can't stop a hacker. She is also asking the legislature to outlaw voting machines before the 2008 presidential election.

It shouldn't surprise anybody that voting machines can be hacked. Any computer can be hacked. Corrupt officials can corrupt voting machine counts just like they can corrupt paper ballot counts. That's why officials develop procedures and penalties to make corrupting vote counts difficult and expensive. Electronic machines with a redundant paper trail are inherently more secure, and refining procedures to monitor the machines, electronic keys, and their printed results will make it virtually impossible to corrupt vote counts.

Mrs. Brunner did extensive work in election law in the age of paper ballots, so this great leap backward puts her in her comfort zone and appeases Democrats who either don't want vote security or don't want to move forward. Moving backward in security and technology instead of moving forward and improving technology, procedures, and security for the future undermines voter confidence and disenfranchises voters.

Adopting new technology always requires a learning curve. Election officials should offer better training and support for the new machines until voters have fully adjusted. It will take a few elections to perfect the procedures to maximize security. And the machines should print a paper record that's suitable for both voter verification and optical scanning. All of this will happen if we move forward. But if Jennifer Brunner had dictated whether or not we adopted every new technology ever invented, you'd have to light a candle in the outhouse to read this essay.

Brunner's order to supply paper ballots will cost county officials $31 million of our tax dollars statewide, and while Mrs. Brunner promises to find state and federal funds to reimburse counties, counties will have to pay for the unfunded mandate then hope for recompense. County officials from the 57 of 88 Ohio counties which invested in electronic voting machines are not happy with Mrs. Brunner's dictate. And if Sec. Brunner gets her way with the legislature, those counties will lose their investment in the voting machines. County officials have this crazy idea that they ought to be free to run elections as they and their county's citizens see fit and not be dictated to by central authority.

So why do we allow Mrs. Brunner to dictate to the rest of us how we vote? As Secretary of State, Mrs. Brunner's is responsible for certifying election results for Ohio, but that doesn't mean she should be able to dictate how counties organize their own elections. The state of Ohio has a vested interest in insuring that the vote counts in every county are fair and accurate, but Mrs. Brunner's dictatorial decision 62 days before the election, complicating the process by forcing counties to count old-fashioned paper ballots in addition to their standard voting machine procedures, threatens the accuracy of vote counts. The state would be better served if each county voted using its method of choice and Sec. Brunner's office monitored the process instead of dictating the methods used by each state.

In fact, Sec. Brunner doesn't have the power to dictate what method counties use to conduct elections. So she is threatening to exercise her power to remove county officials who refuse her dictate. Sec. Brunner is using state sanctioned blackmail to force a great leap backward on the voters of Ohio against the will of county election officials. Many would say this is standard operating procedure for government. That's even worse.

And this is the kind of people we vote for election after election. Jennifer Brunner doesn't care about our freedom. She doesn't respect the rights of county citizens to govern themselves. And she's willing to destroy careers and sacrifice voter security to force her politically motived authoritarian views on Ohio voters and election officials. Sec. Brunner isn't just dictating a great leap backward in technology, but in freedom and self-government as well. We vote for bigger, more authoritarian government every election. It's no wonder jobs and people are fleeing Ohio.