Are Electronic Voting Machines Being Used to Steal the Election?

After the Bush versus Gore election in which the final vote count seemed suspicious to many, a large segment of the voting population began to mistrust electronic voting machines. Now, according to the Washington Post, over 25% of Americans will cast their ballot electronically this year.

Whether or not you believe that electronic votes are more corruptible than the written kind, it’s clear that the machines are being used frequently enough to account for a significant portion of the popular vote in a presidential race. Machines have lost election data before, and sometimes the companies that count the votes are owned by people with an interest in the outcome. Today, a video (seen below) of a voting machine irregularity has gone viral on Reddit, with users alleging vote fraud. Let’s examine the claims people make against electronic voting machines.

Accidents Happen, but So Does Foul Play

First of all, it’s important to note that every serious campaign in a presidential race will likely have someone commit vote fraud on its behalf. The reason why campaigns send poll watchers to observe the process is to ensure that their votes are properly counted. However, in some parts of the country, one political machine controls the voting process. Also, some campaigns do not have sufficient numbers of activists to watch every poll in every area. Sometimes it’s a Democratic organization turning in absentee ballots on behalf of dead people, in other cases a Republican donor owns the company that runs the electronic voting machines in a particular state. There are shady characters in every corner when it comes to politics.

The above video looks more like a software error than a real attempt at voter fraud. Since the vote can be seen changing on screen to Romney while the person depicted is standing there casting a vote for Obama, then it would be highly ineffective as a means of stealing the vote. In this case, the person voting will immediately see the error and contact an official at the polls to report the problem. The affected machine was eventually removed. However, this does not mean that vote fraud does not occur. In fact, statistically speaking, it’s likely to occur in a lot of precincts all over the country in every presidential election.

Are Paper Ballots Vulnerable to Voter Fraud?

When elections are stolen, it often has more to do with an out of control political machine than it does the specific mechanism of voting. In many localities, paper ballots are equally vulnerable because those counting the votes are disproportionately represented by one political party. One corrupt precinct with no poll watchers is all it takes for vote totals to change significantly.

Electronic machines, on the other hand, are often counted by an independent, private company. Where conflicts of interest exist, people worry that the vote totals will be inaccurate. This is a realistic concern, and, in some cases, it should be expected that such fraud occurs. However, it can also be overestimated in some ways. The internet has run wild with speculation that Tagg Romney will use his financial investment in an Ohio voting machine company to fix the election. NPR noted that he doesn’t have enough of an investment to control said company, nor does the company service enough precincts to significantly change the election outcome.

Since elections are run in a decentralized fashion according to the rules of each state, it would be virtually impossible for one campaign to commit the kind of massive, widespread vote fraud that would drastically change an election outcome. Many states do have laws that require lots of checks-and-balances to ensure the most accurate vote total possible, and beating them all would require millions of accomplices. However, it is very likely that voter fraud happens on a small scale in every election. Close races with a 3 to 5% margin are likely to be affected, as are presidential elections that come down to only one state. Any precinct located in a county controlled by one party is likely to find a way around counting the opposition party’s votes. However, such precincts are unlikely to turn out many voters from another party, as that is probably why the political machine is so powerful to begin with.

Electronic voting machines could be used without voter fraud at all, if the election were done this way: a special type of electronic voting machine could be employed whereupon the result is printed out on a sheet of paper, which could then be handed on the spot to an election commission official as a written copy. An independent company could report the votes from the computer program, while the election commission verifies that the paper printouts match. If there were a discrepancy, then a third party independent group could double check both groups. This would provide lots of checks-and-balances and would be both a paper and electronic system.

Regardless, we won’t know for sure whether vote fraud occurred in this election until the results are in. If there are lots of contentious precinct results and the vote is very close, then it should be assumed that any campaign might make an effort to cheat. However, if the election winds up being a landslide win by one side, then voter fraud is not likely to affect the outcome. You can be sure it’s happening somewhere, though, as we speak, whether it affects the outcome or not.

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