Electronic Voting Vulnerable to Fraud

Electronic Voting Vulnerable to Fraud
The Venezuelan referendum of Aug 15, 2004, illustrates the dangers of this polling method

Published 2006-08-05 18:00 (KST)

There is no doubt that the "old-fashioned" ballot box system is a far better way to collect votes than the newer electronic method. In fact electronic voting is very dangerous and harmful to any country that desires transparency in its final results.

There is already sufficient evidence that electronic voting is an evil solution. Its use in various states of the U.S.A. has given rise to fraud, likewise in Venezuela and the recent election in Mexico, where doubts about the transparency of the results have led to political quarrels.

Research carried out in Venezuela revealed several ways in which electronic voting can cause problems. The research was carried out at the time of the recall referendum of the mandate of Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, on Aug 15 2004.

The research showed that the purchase of an automated voting system is in violation of Venezuelan law, which specifies that voting should be manual and secret.

The automated voting system's software was not updated in such a way that would have guaranteed their operation only by authorized personnel. The software was not adequately tested and it was found that it could be interfered with, so that a vote for candidate A could be assigned to candidate B.

It was also found that the electronic equipment was not adequately tested. Unsupervised soldiers were allowed to transfer the equipment from one place to another and there were no safeguards against interference by other people.

There was a fingerprint capture system that was used to identify voters. This meant that votes were not secret and people voting for the opposition could later find that they were discriminated against. During the recall petition the database "remembered" the voters' previous decisions and this enabled the manipulation of the flow of voters.

When the votes were audited a random sample was not selected, instead the selection was manipulated.

Voting information was also allowed to pass through intermediaries, allowing for further manipulation, before arriving at the principal center.
©2006 OhmyNews

Other articles by reporter Alfredo Ascanio