BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : NOVEMBER 27, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY Is There Any Help for the 'Hanging Chad'? Punch cards are troublesome, but Internet voting could be, too One person, one vote. Each vote counts. That's the bedrock of democracy. So it came as a rude shock to most Americans to learn that thousands of votes in Florida and elsewhere weren't tallied correctly, or at all--and that the glitches may forever cast doubt on who won the Presidency. With so much at stake, can't a nation capable of sending rockets past Saturn and reading humanity's genetic code accurately count the votes of its citizens? The answer: Not as accurately as we want. While it's possible to solve some of the problems that occurred, election experts say, replacing Florida's infamous punch cards with newer technology--whether touch-screen machines or the Internet--isn't going to give us definitive answers. ''There is no perfect voting system,'' says Warren Slocum, chief elections officer of California's San Mateo County. The truth is, ''everything we are doing has some margin of error,'' explains computer-security expert Lance J. Hoffman of George Washington University. How much? ''I'd be surprised if the error rate was less than 1% nationwide,'' estimates Bill Welsh, chairman and CEO of Election Systems & Software Inc., in Omaha. That means 1 million potentially questionable votes in this Presidential election--far more than Al Gore's slim overall lead in the popular vote. Trying to do much better with any election system ''is like trying to weigh subatomic particles on a bathroom scale,'' says Mark Strama, vice-president of Election.com. And the tighter the race, the more likely errors are to trip political chaos. In principle, today's voting technology is a match for the challenges of an election. The most commonly used machines are punch-card readers, optical scanners that tally arrows or filled-in ovals on paper ballots, and electronic touch-screen devices. In tests under ideal conditions, these devices are all accurate to within 6 votes in 10 million. But in practice, a change in humidity might cause a punch card or paper ballot to misfeed, or a power surge could erase a vote. But these errors are minor compared with those caused by human foibles, such as Palm Beach (Fla.)'s unfortunate ballot design. Even when ballots are crystal clear, election officials say, many voters don't follow instructions, circling a candidate's name on a paper ballot, for instance, instead of connecting an arrow. Nor can ballots left in polling workers' cars be counted. And potential frauds are a constant shadow. Put millions of voters and polling workers together, says San Mateo's Slocum, ''and there are bound to be glitches.'' Adds R. Doug Lewis, director of the nonprofit Election Center in Houston: ''We've had these problems in state and local races forever. We've just never been exposed to them in a Presidential race before.'' Still, better technology can eliminate some of the bugs. Banning butterfly ballots and other designs that confuse voters would be a step forward. Also, instead of shipping punch cards to another place to be read, more precincts can install readers right in the polling place. Where state law permits, the reader can then spit out ballots with overvotes--and give voters who punched two holes by mistake another chance. Similarly, optical readers at the polling place can reject paper ballots on which voters failed to connect the arrows or fill in the ovals correctly. SECOND CHANCES. Optical readers also solve the ''hanging chad'' problem of punch-card systems--the fact that punching doesn't always fully remove the paper when voters make a hole. That's why optical systems have become the fastest-growing voting method in the U.S. New touch-screen systems made by Sequoia Pacific Systems, ES&S, and others, which record votes electronically, represent a higher-tech approach (see page 225). If voting machines were secure computers, ''a lot of these little problems--which happened to be big problems in Florida--would be eliminated,'' says David Jefferson, technology committee chair of California's Internet Voting Task Force and a senior researcher at the Compaq Systems Research Center. But electronic systems come with their own set of problems. One is cost. To avoid long lines at polling places, counties need a lot of the machines instead of just a few punch-card or optical readers. And at more than $3,000 each, that's big bucks. California's Riverside County spent $14 million on its new system, which saves Riverside $600,000 per election in ballot-printing costs. Still, outfitting all 3,066 counties in the U.S. would cost tens of billions of dollars up front--and most election officials are already perennially short of funds. More fundamentally, ''once you go to an electronic system, in essence you are trusting the computer program,'' says Hoffman. But what if the machine had been tampered with? Who would even know? A recount won't answer the question because the system for storing electronic ballot ''images'' could be flawed as well, just as the old-fashioned lever machines still used in New York can be rigged. ''Only a few computer scientists would be able to go in and say, 'Yes, the computer did the right thing,''' says scientist Aviel D. Rubin of the Secure Systems Research Dept. at AT&T Labs. That's why many county officials have opted to stay with paper-based systems. ''A certain level of integrity comes from being able to do a manual recount in a close election,'' says San Mateo's Slocum. So what about Internet voting? Using encryption technology and secure Net-connected terminals at polling places, startups like VoteHere.net are convincing experts that such a system could be made safe from hackers. They point out that, as it is, some touch-screen systems transmit encrypted vote counts over telephone lines. MAIL FRAUD. The real attraction of the Web, though, is that it would allow citizens to vote from home. But that increases the potential for disaster, computer-security experts say. First, it raises all the existing, thorny problems with old-fashioned remote voting by mail, from vote selling to outright fraud. ''There is something to be said for showing up in some physical location and saying who you are under penalty of perjury,'' says Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. Second, when you factor in the porous, ad-hoc nature of the Internet, the chances of abuse rise exponentially. Attack programs could take over people's machines and steal their votes. Viruses could knock out voters' computers on Election Day. Network assaults could slow the Web enough to discourage participation. ''My nightmare is that there would be a security disaster where some foreign power interferes with a U.S. election--and we find out only after the fact,'' says Compaq's Jefferson. For now, Internet voting is only a viable option for elections at private organizations. The bottom line is that a big change in technology could bring as many headaches as solutions. ''The current system is not really broken, Florida notwithstanding,'' concludes Jefferson. Sure, we can do a little better. But in close races, politicians will probably want to do manual recounts anyway. And in the case of photo finishes like Election 2000, we may have to accept that we'll never really know for sure. By John Carey in Washington _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The Economy: Passing a Dimmer Torch COVER IMAGE: The New President's Economy CHART: Growth Slows...As Tech Demand Weakens...Manufacturing Dips... 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