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E-Voting Machine Error by Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., November 6, 2004 Once again, Tuesday's national election revealed the basic problem with e-voting machines. In a nutshell, they are prone to errors -- whether through intentional programming or accidental malfunctions -- that can be undetectable. [1] For instance, the e-voting precinct of Gahanna in suburban Columbus, Ohio, recorded about seven times more votes for Mr. Bush than there were actual votes cast in the entire precinct! Fortunately, this error was so grossly
in Mr. Bush's favor that it was noticed by voters in that precinct when
they saw Gahanna's impossible vote totals on television, thus prompting
corrective telephone calls to their registrar's office. However,
we don't know how many more e-voting "errors" have resulted in the misallocation
of votes in Mr. Bush's favor, but have gone undetected.
Hence, it's at least theoretically possible
that enough undetected e-voting machine "errors" occurred in Ohio to give
Mr. Bush his 136,000-vote margin of victory. Of course, that number
of errors would be highly consequential, because if Mr. Kerry had won
Ohio, he'd have lost the nationwide popular vote, but won the presidential
race in the Electoral College by a margin of 272 to 266. Hence,
he would be the next president! [2]
By the way, significant e-voting machine
errors also occurred on Tuesday in North Carolina and San Francisco.
And those are just the e-voting errors that have already been discovered
and revealed to the public, so they could be the tip of the iceberg!
Two Conclusions Are No-Brainers: (A) at
minimum, the election results from every e-voting county nationwide should
be thoroughly scrutinized for as-yet-undetected irregularities caused
by e-voting machines; and (B) under the US Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment
equal protection of e-voters nationwide, Congress should immediately pass
uniform election legislation to mandate that e-voting machines cannot
be used in another general election in any state unless they have paper-printer
attachments which can generate hard-copy verification of the voters' intent!
[3]
ENDNOTES
[1] Read John McCarthy's illuminating 11-5-04
CD/AP article, "Machine Error Gives Bush Thousands Of Extra Votes," now
at this URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-23.htm
[2] Here's why it matters. George
W. Bush won the nationwide popular vote by 3.5 million votes. However,
the US Constitution mandates that results are dispositive within the Electoral
College, which has a total of 538 votes. Thus, American candidates
must win at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Tuesday's
final tally in the Electoral College accorded 286 votes to Mr. Bush --
including Ohio's 20 -- and 252 votes to Mr. Kerry. Therefore, if
Ohio's 20 votes had gone to John Kerry: (a) he'd have won in the Electoral
College with 272 votes; (b) Mr. Bush would have lost with 266 votes; and
(c) Mr. Kerry would have been the USA's next president. See the
New York Times' state-by-state chart of presidential-election outcomes
by using this URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/elections2004/2004President.html [3] Concerning the applicability of the
US Constitution's 14th-Amendent Equal Protection Clause, see the US Supreme
Court's decision in Bush v. Gore (Dec. 12, 2000) at:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.,
is the Executive Director of the
American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
©2004EAPIII
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