Daniel Lopresti

Citing the threat of exploitable design flaws and a fundamental lack of transparency, a group of computer science and engineering professors from Lehigh University have gone on the record with their concerns regarding the use of certain electronic voting technologies now under consideration by counties throughout the state of Pennsylvania.

The letter, which was sent to several local, state and national lawmakers, notes that the impending purchase by Pennsylvania counties of electronic voting machines “could place the outcomes of future elections at risk” by remaining vulnerable to “a wide variety of threats, many of which could be carried out by a single perpetrator or a small group needing only a modest understanding of computer security.”

Signing the letter were Lehigh professors Daniel Lopresti, Henry F. Korth, Edwin Kay, Glenn D. Blank, and Christine Hofmeister.

“E-voting machines are nothing more than specialized computers and, as such, there are a number of different ways that these systems can be tampered with and the integrity of elections compromised,” says Lopresti, an associate professor in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. “These problems can all be addressed either through appropriate technological solutions or procedural policies. Given what’s at stake in elections, it’s too important not to put every safeguard in place.”

Such safeguards are also important in reassuring voters that their votes are being recorded and counted accurately, says Lopresti, who advocates a voter-verified paper audit trail that remains in the voting precinct and that could be used as a backup, if an electronic system fails for any number of reasons, or for recount purposes.

Concerns about integrity of elections

“Every system has its weaknesses—even the old lever-style systems that we’ve used for decades in Pennsylvania,” he says. “But those flaws were known and addressed. We cannot assume that these new voting methods are bug-free, and we must demand systems and procedures that protect the integrity of our electoral process.”

Lopresti and his colleagues base their assessment of the new electronic voting systems being adopted around the state, the letter says, “on our years of professional experience, both as faculty members …..and our international reputations as experts in designing, implementing, and debugging complex software and hardware systems.”

Although the professors stress that their opinions do not represent an official position by the university, they join hundreds of computer science and engineering experts across the country who have gone on the record opposing the use of electronic voting machines that cannot be vetted by anyone.

“The ability to have a fair, transparent and secure voting process is fundamental to a representative democracy,” Lopresti says. “Any system that compromises those values is not one that we can endorse.”

While observing that some proposed e-voting systems offer tremendous promise, they also pose “substantial danger to our democratic process if not correctly implemented and operated.

“It is our fervent hope,” the letter concludes, “that (legislators and representatives) will call on independent experts from the field of computer science to help in assessing proposed e-voting systems and not simply trust what the manufacturers have to say in a matter of such importance to all citizens.”

Counties across the state are replacing lever machines that have been used for several decades in order to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that was passed in 2002. That law requires counties to modernize voting equipment by the upcoming primary election on May 16.

In Northampton County, electronic voting machines slated for purchase are manufactured through Advanced Voting Systems. In Lehigh County, the machines are manufactured through Diebold.

Electronic voting machines have been the subject of controversy for the past several years, and have been broadly criticized by academics and voting rights activists for unreliable and questionable performance in the 2004 presidential election.

A study, “Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report”, was co-authored by a diverse group of professors and academicians specializing in statistics and mathematics affiliated with University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Utah, Cornell University, University of Wisconsin, Southern Methodist University, Case Western Reserve University and Temple University.

Their study does not support claims made by exit poll companies Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International that exit poll errors were to blame for the unprecedented 5.5 percent discrepancy between exit polls and official 2004 election results.

The statisticians noted that precincts with hand-counted paper ballots showed no statistical discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results. However, for precincts that relied on electronic voting technologies, the overall discrepancy was far larger than the polls’ margin of error. The pollsters at Edison/Mitofsky agreed that their 2004 exit polls, for whatever reason, had the poorest accuracy in at least 20 years.

For more information, please email Daniel Lopresti
or go online to access the website he created on this issue.


--Linda Harbrecht

Posted on Friday, March 10, 2006