Alexa Linton
Abstract
Americans' right to vote validates the American government as a true democracy. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in the fall of 2002 to make elections more secure after the debacle in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. While HAVA was intended to make elections more secure and reliable, it has in fact had the opposite effect, even threatening to undermine the very foundations of democracy. HAVA, as commonly interpreted, has forced states to purchase electronic voting machines, most of which, including the ones just purchased by Bucks County, Pennsylvania, provide absolutely no voter verifiable paper ballot. This eliminates any possibility to recount or audit the vote. Paperless electronic voting machines are not only expensive but can also be easily rigged to fix an election. They have weak security systems that can easily be tampered with, proprietary software that is kept secret by the manufacturer, and are already notorious for losing or miscounting votes. These machines should not be used because of their high cost, vulnerability to hacking and fraud, unreliability, and most of all because of their lack of a voter verifiable receipt.
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Index Terms
- Voter verified ballots: the backbone of democracy
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