Is the ease and convenience of electronic voting worth the risk in potential screw-ups?

Yes

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by Marco Angioni II

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There is a potential for mistakes in any system that is used for voting, whether it is electronic or otherwise. As such, we need to determine whether the technological advancements that mankind has made should be used in a situation as important as voting. I believe the answer to this inquiry to be a "yes." If we can trust banks and other financial firms to use electronics and technology as a way to track our bank accounts, I believe that a one-time transaction such as a vote should be near error-free. Unfortunately, this is not the case. However, when these electronic machines fail, most of the time it is a result of human error and not a result of technological malfunction.

The biggest contributor to voting issues is human error. Whether it is an ambiguously marked ballot, a mistake in a "punch card," or a counting error, the mistakes are caused by humans and not by any machine. As such, if we can develop a system that can virtually eliminate the chance of a human error creating a discrepancy in the voting results, we will have effectively created a system that ensures that a person's vote is counted for the person for which he/she intended to vote. Electronic voting is this solution. Of course there are some problems, but as noted above, most of these are caused by human error.

Nobody will ever forget the Bush and Gore election of 2000. This election will go down in the history books as the most ineffective use of man power (due to poor training and ill conceived ideas of effective ballot casting) ever utilized for an election. The result is irrelevant. It was the Supreme Court Cases and other court cases, the additional money needed to recount and to reanalyze "ambiguous" ballots, and all of the other economic waste that resulted that were the big issues in that catastrophe of the American election process. If electronic voting machines were available in the affected voting districts, this media circus could have been avoided.

Electronic voting machines are superior to any other kind of voting method because there can be no ambiguity. Unlike punch ballots or paper ballots where a voter can mark more than one box for a particular office and thus create an ambiguity, electronic voting machines allow a voter to vote for only one person. As such, electronic voting machines eliminate any ambiguity in a vote count.

Of course this is not to say that electronic voting does not have its disadvantages. Electronic voting machines require power. As such, if they are not plugged in or if there happens to be a power outage in a particular voting district, voters could be delayed for hours or longer. Additionally, many people that are uncomfortable with electronics or do not know how to utilize such a machine will require assistance. This can cause further delay. However, a delay in the beginning can be overcome with a well trained staff and uniformity among voting machine protocol.

Although voting machines do have some disadvantages, the fact that quick, unambiguous results occur and the fact that no counting errors can occur makes electronic voting machines vastly superior to any other method.

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