Virginia is gradually edging away from electronic voting machines that can't produce a paper record of each vote cast.
State legislators last year passed a law requiring local registrars to purchase paper-and-scanner systems as their touch-screen computers wear out. Although Virginia is straggling behind 38 states that have switched to voter-verified paper records, the decision to phase out the electronic devices was prudent and frugal.
That's just a first step, and fortunately legislators are already thinking ahead. They approved legislation this year for pilot programs to test audit procedures for paper records.
A paper record does not immunize Virginia from programming glitches in the scanners that tabulate votes, or from fraudulent efforts to tamper with elections. To safeguard election results, the state should consider:
- Procedures that ensure the records, machines and precincts selected for audit are chosen in a random manner.
- Guidelines on the minimum percentage of precincts or machines to be audited after each major election.
- A process allowing candidates to pick one or more of the precincts to be included in the audit.
- Guarantees that all findings are made public.
- Procedures for responding to discrepancies, and accountability for those responsible.
Nancy Rodrigues, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said local registrars are receptive to audits, and she expects to have plenty of volunteers after Election Day.
A study last year by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that most states don't require audits. Virginia lawmakers and election officials haven't been leading the pack on election reforms, but they are showing signs of wanting to get it right.
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Paper or Plastic?
In Virginia Beach, we recently went to the touch screen voting machines that required the use of a plastic "smart card" not unlike the CAC's that we in the DoD world have come to know and love. I personally like the "new" touch screen system.
Previously (and not too long ago) we had the punch cards that the voters in Florida had such a hard time figuring out to operate (remember the hanging chads?), and as I recall, they worked pretty well for us here as a "paper" solution.
Is it possible to come up with a hybrid system here? A paper and plastic combination? How about a touch screen system that records your vote electronically, AND prints out a paper ballot that can be deposited in the event that a recount is necessary.
I'm no rocket scientist, but this shouldn't be that hard.