(Note: the spacing has no particular significance, other than helping me in deliver the speech.)

Make Your Vote Count (Toastmasters Speech 3)
This 4^th of July weekend we celebrated independence and democracy. The right to choose our government through voting lies at the heart of that independence. In light of certain problems with voting technology that endangers our votes, we may have been celebrating too soon.

As a strong believer in our democracy, I was sure that having seen the problems that arose during the 2000 presidential election, everything would be done to ensure we would never have the problems again.

And since 2000, chads and the machines that left them pregnant or hanging are being replaced by electronic voting machines all over the country.

Potential downsides, however, seem to have been overlooked or ignored. This worries me, especially since I may be voting on one of those electronic voting machines this November.

But this is not just a U.S. issue: electronic voting machines are cropping up all over the world, most recently in the April/May elections in the world’s largest democracy, India.

And they have caused problems all over the world.

In 2000, problems with electronic voting machines caused the highest Venezuelan court to suspended elections because of vote tabulation problems, and President Hugo Chavez accused the machine’s producers of trying to destabilize the electoral process.

Problems with electronic voting machines are an extremely important issue for everyone here, regardless of your citizenship or political affiliation.

Of particular concern are problems regarding their accuracy, and accountability.

Electronic voting machines were embraced not only because they don’t produce chads, but because they’re supposedly easier and faster. But when using a voting machine what really matters to me, and I think most voters, is accuracy—does the device count the vote the way the voter intended it to be cast?

Well, problems have arisen, from votes being counted twice, switched to something else, or disappearing altogether. Hundreds of election result errors due to electronic voting machines have been documented, but I just wanted to share a couple of my favorite examples with you, starting right in our area.

According to the Washington Times, some voters in Croom, Maryland had doubts after using the machines, explaining “I pushed a Republican ticket for governor and his name disappeared. Then the Democrat’s name got an “X” put in it.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that in Allamakee County, Iowa, an optical-scan machine was fed 300 ballots during the November 2000 election, but reported 4 million votes.

When the county auditor tried the machine again, he got the same results. Republicans had hoped that the tiny, but heavily Republican county would tip the scales in George W. Bush’s favor, but tipping it by almost four million votes attracted national attention, particularly considering the fact that there aren’t 4 million voters in the entire state of Iowa.

My very favorite example, however, comes from the 2003 Lake County, Illinois election. After learning he had been beaten quite badly, Illinois Democrat Rafael Rivera told the Chicago Tribune, “I knew something was wrong when I looked up my own precinct and it showed zero votes. I said, Wait a minute. I know I voted for myself!”

Problems with new technologies are nothing new, surprising, or even alarming. Most technology will have some kinks. But when it comes to something as important as voting, we need to do everything we can to iron out the kinks and also have some kind of backup. Problems should be acknowledged not covered up, because then they can be fixed.

However, many vendors selling the machines and elections officials implementing them appear to be ignoring, or at the very least overlooking, a number of problems.

Some of this may be unintentional, but there is evidence that some vendors are deliberately misrepresenting the accuracy of their product. In Nov 2002, after a New Mexico touch-screen voting machine only tallied 36 of 48,000 votes cast, a 25% margin of error, the vice president of the voting machine company apologized for not having mentioned that the same problem had happened before in Nevada.

In a sales meeting several months later, salespeople from the same company not only failed to mention previous errors, but responded to questions about 25% error rates by saying they didn’t know where that number came from and that it was incorrect.

Some of our elections officials are actually being duped by these salespeople who barrage them with talking points and sales presentations. Some are pressured into buying now, or losing government funds, and are not given other, safer options.

Some just seem naïve, arguing that they trust the system. At an electronic voting machine workshop in Denver, one election director responded to the question of why she trusts the system by saying that “The nice man from the company—he’d never do anything wrong.”

So vendors are not acknowledging the problems, and public officials lay misplaced trust in those vendors. But the thing is that we don’t have to place our trust solely in the machines or the good word of the vendors.

One of the easiest ways to ensure accuracy and accountability is to provide a voter verified paper ballot, something where after you vote electronically, a printer spits out a paper copy of your vote. You then see how you voted and voting officials have a way to do a hand recount if the need arises.

I’m sure that you, like me, are thinking—that’s so simple, it’s brilliant! And we are not the only ones who think so—more than 1200 top computer science experts from academia and industry signed a “Resolution on Electronic Voting” emphasizing the need for a paper record of votes.

Various technology groups endorse similar initiatives, but No technology group has endorsed paperless voting.

And yet, electronic voting machine vendors balked at demands for a paper trail, and even a number of election officials have insisted that electronic voting is perfectly safe and accurate, and that paper ballots are unnecessary.

It’s like someone in charge of your children insisting that her car is safe enough, so your kids don’t need to wear seatbelts. She knows it’s safe, because the guy who sold it to her said so.

Well, I don’t buy it. In any case, I think it never hurts to be too safe, whether you’re in charge of children or votes.

Clearly, we ought to be concerned about electronic voting machines. However, I still believe in our system, and, as a pragmatic optimist, I believe that it is our responsibility to do something, because individuals can make a difference.

You could make your friends and coworkers aware, write your members of congress demanding voter verified paper ballots, or just pay more attention to the issue yourself. I decided to convince all of my techie friends to be poll observers and to attend public certification and testing meetings.

This 4^th of July, I felt quite patriotic eating wet hot dogs in the pouring rain and wading through muddy patches to watch fireworks.

But I felt most patriotic preparing this speech and remembering that I am fighting for the right to vote and having that vote counted.

I strongly urge you to do the same.