Voting Technology 10 Years After Bush vs. Gore

When you hear about voting technology and electronic ballots, it’s almost never without a mention of the election snafu of 2000. Remember that doozy? Remember pregnant chads, butterfly ballots, and election workers squinting at punch cards in what must have been the most boring job ever? If anything could have spurred us to adopt full-on nationwide electronic balloting, that was it. And yet, ten years later, even here in high-tech San Francisco, we vote (at least at my polling place) by connecting arrows with a magic marker.

Electronic voting is actually a broad term, encompassing voting by touchscreen, voting by optically-scanned paper ballot, or even simply counting votes electronically. In any form, though, e-voting is more efficient and more accessible than hand-counted paper ballots.

Why haven’t we fully adopted e-voting? In part, underfunded localities cannot afford to wholesale replace their voting systems. Even if they can, touchscreen and e-voting technology become obsolete as fast as anything else—even if they make an initial investment, it’s hard for localities to keep pace with upgrades and new systems.

Another answer, however, is that improved voting technology has been blocked in some cases by organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which harbors concerns about privacy, accuracy, and disenfranchisement. In the e-voting rush after 2000, we moved a little too quickly without thinking through those issues.

And so, ten years after Bush v. Gore, we’re in the middle of a transition from paper to computer. Some scanning, some punch cards, some touchscreens, some paper. In Washington, D.C. and other cities, voters are given the option of using touchscreen or paper ballots, which prompted my favorite response of the election season, from humor writer Gene Weingarten:

I voted this morning. Had a choice to use paper ballot or touch
screen. Chose touch screen, for the novelty, and the green, of it. Was
led to touch screen area, where it became apparent there was only one
touch screen, and a grumbly line; paper-ballot people were sailing
right through without a wait, and looking at touch-screen people with
sympathy. Why aren’t there more touch screens, I asked. “People don’t
seem to like ‘em,” I was told.

What do you think of e-voting? How do you vote at your polling place?

Related posts:

1. Accessibility in Technology: ADA marks 20 years
2. Suddenly I’m Surrounded by Touch Screens!
3. Forty Years of the Internet—Maybe
4. Eleven Years of Google
5. Thoughts On India’s Technology Renaissance