U.S. voting-security advocates are bracing for e-voting problems in the upcoming general election that could rival those in Florida during the 2000 presidential race.
Advocates aren’t worried about hanging chads on paper ballots, which caused thousands of votes to go uncounted in the 2000 election. Instead, a number of voting-security groups are focused on the electronic voting machines that have replaced paper ballots in many states. Counties in 27 states, including presidential swing states such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as the District of Columbia, will use direct electronic recording machines, accounting for about 30 percent of U.S. voters on November 2. Interviews with local elections officials who will be overseeing the use of electronic voting equipment on Election Day suggest that most dismiss the controversy over electronic voting technology and are hopeful about the promise of the new machines to allow elections to run more smoothly. But a flood of new voters could combine with a potpourri of new voting technology and the United States’s scattershot system for running and managing elections to create confusion.
Source: PC World
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