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Lawsuits cast votes against electronic voting machines.

Article Excerpt
On the eve of elections that could shift the balance of power in at least one house of Congress, lawsuits filed by voters in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio are challenging the use of electronic voting machines.

The cases, filed against various state officials in state and federal courts, contain several allegations finding fault with direct-recording electronic voting machines (DREs): that they count votes inaccurately, pose security risks because of easily manipulated or flawed software, and violate constitutional guarantees of the right to vote when they do not print out voter-verifiable paper ballots for use in audits and recounts.

Not long ago, many election-reform proponents hailed electronic machines as a solution to voting problems of the kind that led to the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, where state officials, struggling to recount paper punch-card ballots, were bedeviled by "hanging chads." Two years later, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which provided funds for state and local governments to upgrade election equipment, including machines that would better accommodate disabled voters. It also established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to administer funds to states and support election officials implementing equipment upgrades.

Although it did not mandate that states switch to DREs, the act created strong incentives to do so. According to the EAC, almost 23 percent of voters used electronic machines in the 2004 presidential election.

DREs commonly use a touchscreen that allows voters to literally touch their choices on a computerized ballot. Their votes are recorded by the machine, which prints out a tally but not individual paper ballots. Some machines can be modified to better accommodate the disabled, as HAVA required.

Some DREs can print voter-verifiable paper ballots, although critics have assailed the technology as flawed. It uses continuous rolls of thermal paper, which do not allow easy assessment of individual ballots in recounts or audits. In addition, the thermal paper degrades easily in heat and with handling. And, critics say, there is no guarantee that what the voter sees on paper matches what is recorded electronically in the machine.

Concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems have surfaced around the country....