Pa. high court hears argument against voter machines

THE STATE Supreme Court is deciding whether Pennsylvania will add pen and paper to its mainly electronic voting system.

Accuracies and constitutionality issues concerning the current voting system in most of the state were brought in front of the high court yesterday in City Hall.

The appeal comes from a 2006 case that argued that votes cast using direct recording electronic machines, or DREs, leave opportunity for tampering because they don't create a physical record of a voter's choice, but rather store electronic records that can be printed later.

"Computer data is, by design, alterable," said Marian Schneider, lawyer for the petitioners. "So when the voting machines are open at the beginning of the day, it can be altered for the whole time the polls are open, either by a bug or malicious software."

This flaw makes DREs incapable of providing correct data needed in recounts, Schneider said.

She said the holes in the electronic-voting method violate the "fundamental right to vote."

The petitioners say the solution is to create more "safeguards" in verification, such as using an optical scan voting system - already used in some Pennsylvania counties - to ensure accuracy.

Justices pointed out that although no system is perfect, the goal is to have the "best available practice" in place.

Steven Bizar, a Philadelphia lawyer representing Carol Aichele, the secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said there have been no problems with the machines.

"The secretary really cares about the quality of the voting machines used in the commonwealth," he said. "We take extraordinary precautions to ensure that the voting machines comply with the election code."

Since their implementation in 2006, Bizar said, the machines have been used in 16 elections by more than 50 million voters, without a single case of fraud or tampering. He said the only problems with the machines were from human error.

Bizar said flaws in the paper system had made the machines widely used in the first place.

"Voters in Pennsylvania should be assured that their votes are counted and that they are counted appropriately," he said.