VOTING IN THE U.S. AND INTEGRITY OF THE ELECTION PROCESS AT RISK

The types of voting equipment used in the United States vary significantly from state to state. Some jurisdictions use electronic devices to record votes. Others use traditional paper ballots, and others still use neither and vote by e-mail.

The following types of voting equipment are used in the United States:

• Optical Scan Paper Ballot Systems: Voters mark their votes by filling in an oval, box, or similar shape on a paper ballot. Later, the paper ballots are scanned either at the polling station or at a central location.
• Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Systems: DRE systems employ computers that record votes directly into the computers’ memory. These interfaces may incorporate touchscreens, dials, or mechanical buttons. The voter’s choices are stored by the computer on a cardridge or hard drive. Some DRE systems are also equipped with a printer, which the voter may use to confirm his or her choices before committing them to the computer’s memory. The paper records can be preserved to be tabulated in case of an audit or recount.
• Ballot Marking Devices and Systems: These systems are designed to help disabled voters who might be unable to vote using other methods. Most devices utilize a touchscreen along with audio or other accessibility features. Rather than recording the vote into the computer’s memory, the ballot is instead marked on paper and later tabulated manually.
• Punch Card Voting Systems: These devices employ a paper card and a small clipboard device. A voter punches holes in the card to mark his or her vote. The pattern of holes in the card indicates the votes cast. The ballot may then be placed in a box to be tabulated manually or scanned by a computer later.

Additionally, some jurisdictions use paper ballots that are manually counted at the polling place. Other jurisdictions use these paper ballots for absentee or provisional voting.[

Key Issues

1. The more than 9,000 voting districts across the country all have different ways of running their elections, down to the type of machine they use.
2. Roughly 70 percent of states use some form of electronic voting. The machines and the software are old and antiquated. 43 states are using voting machines that are at least 10 years old.  According to election watchdog groups, these outdated machines and the inability to replace or fix them make it harder for election officials to administer election.
3. Voters in four competitive states will cast ballots in November on electronic machines that leave no paper trail. The most glaring potential trouble spots include Pennsylvania, where the vast majority of counties (50 out of 67) still use ATM-style touchscreen voting machines without the paper backups. Similar paperless machines are used heavily in Georgia and to a much smaller extent in Virginia and Florida, both of which are phasing them out. Florida has almost entirely abandoned the electronic machines. States with no paper backup include Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey. States with some paper backup include: Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas.
4. The lack of paper ballot record in key states poses two potential risks to public confidence in the U.S. electoral system: It creates the danger that someone could alter the results in ways that are nearly impossible to detect, with no hard-copy record that would allow a manual recount. Beyond that, supporters of the losing candidate could simply refuse to accept the results.
5. According to Symantec Security, Election Day results could be manipulated by an affordable device one can find online. One can insert this device and then it resets the card, and one is able to vote again. The voter doesn’t even need to leave the booth to hack the machine.
6. In recent years, state legislatures across the U.S. have implemented voter identification laws in order to prevent vote fraud and protect election integrity. But in 19 states (36%)  (California, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Washington D.C. NO ID (some form of identification) is required to vote at ballot box.
7. GEMS election system represents approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. A fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.  Instead of ‘1’ the vote is allowed to be ½, or 1+ 7/8, or any other value that is not a whole number. Weighting a race [through the use of GEMS] removes the principle of ‘one person-one vote’ to allow some votes to be counted as less than one or more than one. Regardless of what the real votes are, candidates can receive a set percentage of votes. Results can be controlled. For example, Candidate A can be assigned 44% of the vote, Candidate B 51%, and Candidate C the rest. All evidence that [rigged] fractional values ever existed [in the GEMS system] can be removed instantly even from the underlying database using a setting in the GEMS data tables, in which case even instructing GEMS to show the [rigged] decimals will fail to reveal they were used. The actual results of the coming elections- including Congressional races- appear to be up for grabs, depending on who controls GEMS.