Michigander in Mass

You (probably won't have) heard it here first: if we don't clean up and standardize electronic voting, we put our entire democractic system at risk. The contention over key swing states like Florida is still fresh in our minds. Now combine that with reported vote irregularities in other hotspots. Transfer of power was very orderly in the last election because our fundamental belief in the overall order of things was not shaken--sure, Floridians don't seem to understand the butterfly ballot, but hey, that's Florida for you. They don't drive that well either, I'm told. But I live in Boston... And I digress as well...

This time around, things are different. Suddenly, the old semi-reliable punch cards have been replaced with new-fangled computers, and your vote is recorded not by a card reader or myopic (or soon to be) election official, but by a black box, the workings of which are unknown and which have been called into question.

Sure, video can be faked, but nobody called into question the images we saw of the close scrutiny so many questionable votes received. We were annoyed but relieved that our government's future is in the hands of, well, a human being we can see.

Now what happens if we have a repeat of 2000, but with computers instead of chads and dimples? Who or what is to blame now if exit polls don't match actual counts or enough people feel that their district's voting numbers don't quite seem right? How do you initiate a recount of digital votes? Does the elections commissioner press a "recount" button on the screen? When the computer finishes its tallies several seconds later, exactly how relieved will he--and the rest of his district--be when the count is, inevitably, exactly the same as before (quantum computing aside, a bit is either on or off, a vote either yes or no).

No pictures of hard-working clerks will be available to reassure the public that their best interests are at heart, and, just to be safe, being recorded for posterity's sake ("dammit, look closely, that was a BUSH vote she threw in the Gore pile!"). No, only a computer, possibly made by a large contributer to the candidate you oppose, reassuring you in a couple lines of output on a computer screen (and maybe a few checksums) that its millions of lines of proprietary code are not flawed.

No. Just a black box. Or rather, thousands of black boxes connected together somehow. How does such a machine reassure the public that it is accurately reflecting their desires?

It stikes me that someone was probably writing something very similar to this when the first voting machines were built. Is there that much of a difference between the "man behind the curtain" behind the curtain [sic. - get it?] of the early mechanical voting booth and the wizard that is the code controlling the new electronic voting machine? Maybe not. But I imagine the machines made a very reassuring noise when your vote was recorded (this can be programmed in of course).

It seems naive to extrapolate that, because we've finally become comfortable entering credit card information online, we're not the least bit concerned with entering our vote similarly. The credit card company says we're only liable for 50 bucks if someone steals our card. What assurances does the U.S. government give? Can we initiate a California-style recall because we've become unhappy with our purchase? "I'm sorry, I know I had four year to try him out, but he seemed pretty harmless until he started prying into MY life..."

I would hate to be living in what some future historian will call the Fall of the American Empire or some other broad generalization, all because people lost faith in the most fundamental duty of a democratic society, voting.

So what can be done? Hey, what do I look like, Ask Jeeves? But I do have a few thoughts...

1. OPEN UP THE BOX. It works for Linux, why not voting? I can guarantee you that people fear power-hungry corporate executives much more than any well-organized, politically-active geeks (isn't that pretty much an oxymoron anyway?) that might somehow find a way of undermining the principles of open computing without somebody else figuring it out.

2. GIVE US A RECEIPT. I get a receipt for the pack of gum I buy at the store. Give me one for my presidential vote too, while you're at it. Don't put my name on it, just my vote and perhaps some kind of code I can enter on a secure website to privately check my vote a few hours later. My anonymity is preserved, and my trust in the system instantly reaffirmed.