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Video related to this article is available below.Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: News
A risk of mishaps with Pa. voting?
Report: 'high risk' of malfunctions for Pa. voting machines
Jessica Bell
Still, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania takes steps every year to have representatives at polling stations to alert volunteer attorneys if there is a problem with voting machines, Barley said, adding that he had heard "stories of people being harassed at the polls and of machines failing, but then people still voting on them."
College freshman Emerson Brooking, who plans to vote in the April 22 primary, said he was worried that a broken voting machine could render his ballot meaningless.
"When an audit could determine the electoral votes of a swing state like Pennsylvania, proper representation of voter preference outweighs potential privacy concerns," he said. By jessica bell
Staff Writer
jbells@dailypennsylvanian.com
Pennsylvania is one of 17 states ranked as being at "high-risk" for voting-machine mishaps by the nonprofit organizations Common Cause and the Verified Voting Foundation.
However, state officials and students varied greatly over whether this recent report is cause for concern.
The report classified states' voting machine reliability based on two conditions: whether voting machines produce paper records and whether these records are randomly audited during the post-election period.
Pennsylvania voting machines are considered "high-risk" because they do not produce a separate paper record of the voter's ballot and, according to the report, recovery from voting machine malfunction or tampering would be nearly impossible.
However, some Pennsylvania elections officials said voting-machine malfunctions are unlikely.
"The voting system in the state has gone through rigorous testing," said Julio Pena, chief of the Pennsylvania Division of Help America Vote Act.
The Help America Vote Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 to require states to update their voting equipment in order to prevent mishaps similar to those that occurred in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.
College freshman Emerson Brooking, who plans to vote in the April 22 primary, said he was worried that a broken voting machine could render his ballot meaningless.
"When an audit could determine the electoral votes of a swing state like Pennsylvania, proper representation of voter preference outweighs potential privacy concerns," he said. By jessica bell
Staff Writer
jbells@dailypennsylvanian.com
Pennsylvania is one of 17 states ranked as being at "high-risk" for voting-machine mishaps by the nonprofit organizations Common Cause and the Verified Voting Foundation.
However, state officials and students varied greatly over whether this recent report is cause for concern.
The report classified states' voting machine reliability based on two conditions: whether voting machines produce paper records and whether these records are randomly audited during the post-election period.
Pennsylvania voting machines are considered "high-risk" because they do not produce a separate paper record of the voter's ballot and, according to the report, recovery from voting machine malfunction or tampering would be nearly impossible.
However, some Pennsylvania elections officials said voting-machine malfunctions are unlikely.
"The voting system in the state has gone through rigorous testing," said Julio Pena, chief of the Pennsylvania Division of Help America Vote Act.
The Help America Vote Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 to require states to update their voting equipment in order to prevent mishaps similar to those that occurred in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Pamela Smith
posted 2/11/08 @ 2:13 PM EST
Thank you for posting this article. The comment from Mr. Pena -- that PA does not use paper trails to protect voter privacy -- is a red herring, unfortunately. (Continued…)
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