Coalition forms to press for paper trails and audits in Virginia elections

December 6, 2006

A coalition of citizens' groups will be working to pass legislation through the Virginia 2007 legislative session to require all election machines in the state to provide voter-verifiable paper audit trails.

Currently, most Virginians vote on paperless machines, known as direct record electronic (DRE) machines that resemble computer laptops. Critics, including computer experts, note that software errors or deliberate manipulation of the software programs can result in errors that may not be detectable before, or even during and after, an election, and that such errors could affect the results of elections. With voters unable to verify that their votes have been properly cast, and with no paper record of each vote, there is no way to audit the machines or to conduct a recount in the event of a close or contested election.

"Every independent study of paperless electronic voting systems has shown that they are insecure, vulnerable to attack from insiders and outsiders, and preclude meaningful recounts or audits", said Jeremy Epstein, co-founder of Virginia Verified Voting and a member of two Virginia legislative commissions that studied the machines. "The vast majority of computer scientists, including virtually all computer security experts believe that the addition of paper (preferably in the form of optical scan ballots) is necessary for accurate recountable elections." Epstein added "the current situation in Florida's 13th Congressional District shows what can happen when there is no paper backup - we will never know if 18,000 voters intentionally skipped selecting a Congressional candidate or if a machine malfunction dropped their votes".

While it is possible to add paper printers to DREs to achieve the goal of verifiability, the Coalition believes the better approach is the use of paper ballots read by optical scanners. Not only is this a less expensive approach, but it is already in use by several Virginia jurisdictions for counting absentee ballots, and the system is familiar both to election officials and to voters who vote by absentee ballot.

Last year the New Era for VA and Virginia Verified Voting supported legislation introduced by Delegate Tim Hugo and Senator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis to mandate voter-verifiable paper audit trails and require regular random audits. Delegate Hugo and Senator Devolites Davis have announced plans to introduce similar legislation this year. The Verifiable Voting Coalition of Virginia invites all Virginians who care about the security and integrity of our democratic process to join with us to support these necessary reforms.