Guest Opinion: Fighting the paperless threat to our democratic system Guest Opinion: Fighting the paperless threat to our democratic system (October 27, 2004)

by Liz Kniss

After the Florida voting debacle in 2000, which ended in the first Supreme Court decision to choose a U.S. President, Congress legislated that electronic voting of some type would be required by 2004.

Santa Clara County in 2002 began looking at machines available, and purchased its choice in 2003 at a cost of nearly $20 Million -- with a small federal subsidy. These new machines do not produce a paper trail, thus votes cannot be physically recounted or audited -- a first in our history (short of actual destruction of ballots).

I was troubled from the start by the lack of a paper trail. Several computer scientists in this area urged the Board of Supervisors not to buy or use this system without a paper trail in place. The board voted 4-1 to buy the system after the company agreed that if a paper trail was ever required it could provide it then.

The boards of supervisors in each of California's 58 counties are responsible for the voting process, and for security. Buying and using a new system is a major financial and political decision.

Why am I so concerned about the paper trail? If you were to buy items at a department or grocery store and get no receipt -- just a verbal assurance that the amount charged is correct -- you would certainly question the system. You would also expect to see the amount displayed on the register.

Why didn't we demand the same paper trail with our electronic voting systems, and insist that elected officials require such? I believe the problems of voting "electronically" weren't fully understood, and confusion muddied the process. Only recently -- after a year and a half of committees, demands from experts and average citizens, and discussions -- did the current governor sign a bill finally requiring an auditable paper trail, but not until 2006.

If you vote electronically, you leave the voting booth empty handed. You assume your vote was accurately registered, you hope the machine's code wasn't tampered with, and you trust that a mysterious computer bug or malicious virus wasn't present.

So, what can be done this year?

More than at any time in our history, voters need to know that their votes will be counted. Your Santa Clara County polling place will have an electronic voting machine; what it won't have, until 2006, is a paper trail.

While it's too late to do anything about the situation for this pivotal election (unless you have already applied for an absentee ballot), voters should be aware of what a close thing this was for California -- and still is for the nation as a whole. Had it not been for Governor Schwarzenegger's action, we would very likely be stuck for years with a paperless system subject to invisible manipulation, hacker intrusion or technical and software bugs.

There's also a deeper danger: Even if some paperless system could be guaranteed 100 percent secure, safe and fair -- an impossible guarantee! -- there would still be a growing perception and suspicion on the part of many people that the system is insecure and unfair. Millions of people across our nation already believe our system is stacked and dominated by the corporate rich and powerful.

We all need to hold onto a healthy skepticism about what we politicians say and do. But when that slips into the kind of bitter cynicism about our political system, our media, the hidden motivations of our national leaders, and how our elections might be tampered with without any way to detect that, then the future of our democracy itself is threatened.

Our system of government is rooted in a basic trust that the voting process works. We have survived and corrected much as a nation in terms of denial of voting rights to segments of our society -- to women, to minorities.

Throughout history, the ability to conduct "recounts" has done much to provide public assurance that the system works and can be audited -- like any corporation that may be playing fast and loose with public trust.

As with the women's suffrage movement a century ago, and the Civil Rights movement a half century ago, we must again fight nationally for our right to an audit trail to preserve our sacred electoral process.

While our state battle seems won, for now, the national effort is still to be decided.

Liz Kniss is a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and formerly served on the Palo Alto City Council and school board. She can be e-mailed at Liz Kniss .

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