Elon Musk on June 15 called for the elimination of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in a post on X. He made this remark while commenting on a post by US presidential hopeful Robert Franklin Kennedy Jr about alleged irregularities in Puerto Rico’s primary elections that could be attributed to EVMs.
This comment kicked up a storm in India, with former Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar stepping in to defend the use of EVMs in India, and opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav decrying its use. Paper Plate And Glass Making Machine
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However, the issue of EVM manipulation will become increasingly relevant as the US gears up to elect its 47th President on November 5, 2024.
What is the system of voting followed in the US? Why is there widespread distrust over the use of EVMs in the country? We explain.
Until 2000, the US followed a paper ballot system using antiquated punch-card voting machines. The controversial showdown during the presidential elections that year between former Vice-President and Democrat Al Gore and the Republican George W Bush did more than just propel the latter to power – it highlighted the need to overhaul the faulty ballot design. Voters were required to mark their votes by punching on ‘chads’ or paper chits attached to the ballots. These chads, however, were not always completely punched out due to technical issues, making the counting a hassle for poll workers.
This led to the implementation of the Help America Vote Act or the HAVA (2002). Among its many sweeping changes, the HAVA mandated a major upgrade of voting equipment resulting in the eventual shift to EVMs — different types of electronic ballot marking machines were introduced, including the Direct Recording Electronic voting machines or DREs, which became the go-to EVM for voting.
Another key change was the introduction of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines to “provide a set of specifications and requirements against which voting systems can be tested to determine if they provide all the basic functionality, accessibility, and security capabilities required of voting systems.”
With these changes in place, the stage was set for a complete transition to a paperless balloting process. However, this did not happen. In the 2022 midterm elections, nearly 70% of all registered voters relied on hand-marked paper ballots and 23% used ballot marking devices, according to a report by Reuters. Only 7% of all registered voters would rely on DREs with no paper record, a figure that has steadily declined over the years, the report added.
While the mistrust around the use of DREs continued to grow gradually post-2007, things came to a head with the allegations of Russian interference and the involvement of analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 Presidential election. These issues concerned the voter registration systems and had less to do with the DREs themselves. However, there was an increasing consensus to back up election results in fear of a potential hack on the systems themselves.
DREs have had a contested history in the US. The first documented use of a DRE dates back to 1975 in Streamwood and Woodstock, Illinois where Video Voter, a patented DRE machine, was first used. However, the presence of DREs in elections would not become mainstream until the HAVA was passed in 2002. In the following decade, a third of all votes would be on DREs.
The mechanism of the DRE has evolved over the decades, from rudimentary electrical versions of the mechanical lever machines used in the 1970s to today’s portable computers with touchscreens or push buttons which can display ballot choices and record votes.
The transition to DREs was criticised by many, with Congress releasing a document with FAQs in 2007 that flagged the reliance on a computer to cast, record and store votes in a single machine as a weakness that hackers could exploit. “Because the machines rely on complicated software, it is at least theoretically possible that someone could insert hidden computer code that would add, subtract, or change votes,” the report said.
Today a solution exists in the form of a paper record called Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) used with a DRE to audit the votes cast. A paper trail serves as a form of insurance against any attempts at hacking the machine. A report coauthored by the NGO Verified Voting estimates that only three states will use paperless equipment in the upcoming 2024 Presidential elections.
A Wharton report titled ‘The Business of Voting’ published in 2017 was the first of its kind investigating the conditions around the American voting process and flagged the lack of transparency in the EVM market in the country. About 90% of all voting machines in the US are made by three companies, including Dominion Voting, which manufactured the machines for the Puerto Rico elections. However, there is negligible data available in the public domain about the size of the market, or its actual state of finances. This situation has raised concerns about the extent of private influence on the larger electoral process. The issue of ageing EVMs has also been flagged repeatedly by multiple experts, but the actual timeline of their replacement varies across states. This has resulted in many counties using voting machines long past their average shelf life of 10 years.
With the rising wave of mistrust and clamour by conservatives, most notably former President Donald Trump to return to a completely paper-based ballot, the federal government in 2017 took the step to add the nation’s voting systems to its list of critical infrastructure, which also includes defence industry, transportation, healthcare and emergency services. Post-2016, Congress has reportedly invested $995 million to boost the election administration and security infrastructure for states, with most of the allocation coming in the run-up to the 2020 election.
Today there is increasing favour for EVMs powered by open-source software (OSS), which allows anyone to read, modify and flag errors in code and theoretically ensures better accuracy. While the debate on publicising the source code of voting machines continues, a few states are experimenting with their use.
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