Article

ATM as ballot box?

Until the most recent election -- and its aftermath -- most Americans voted using whatever method was provided and thought no more of it. They punched holes in cards, filled in circles on paper ballots and trusted that their votes would be accurately counted. But the fall-out in Florida showed that the methods used to gather and tabulate votes are woefully out of date.

January 27, 2002 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

Until the most recent election -- and its aftermath -- most Americans voted using whatever method was provided and thought no more of it. They punched holes in cards, filled in circles on paper ballots and trusted that their votes would be accurately counted.

But the fall-out in Florida showed that the methods used to gather and tabulate votes are woefully out of date.

Technologists were quick to point out that voting could be done electronically. And while there has been some talk of Internet voting and other high-tech solutions, much discussion has focused on using a familiar device -- the ATM -- as a method of gathering information from voters.

Familiar interface

At first glance, the idea of voting at an ATM seems ideal. After all, it has already earned the trust of most Americans. Security, privacy, and accuracy -- all qualities which are essential in the voting booth -- are among the proven advantages of ATM technology.

Electronic voting systems are already in use in other countries. Last October, residents of Brazil cast their votes in a national election at 326,000 kiosks manufactured by Procomp Amazonia Industria Electronica. The toaster-sized terminals featured photos of the candidates, especially important in a country with a high rate of illiteracy.

Shortly after the election, Dieboldacquired Procomp and earned a $106 million contract to provide more of the terminals to the government of Brazil. It was the largest single order in Diebold history.

"Reliable electronic voting terminal technology is available today. In Brazil, 109 million people voted using the Diebold electronic voting terminal, and results were tabulated within a few hours," said Mark Radke of Diebold's Global Marketing division. "Even with the illiteracy rate in Brazil at 20 percent and unreliable power at many polling locations, the equipment functioned flawlessly."

"It's a presentation of screens that is very simple to people who are used to ATMs," said Chris Klein, executive vice president of marketing for Mosaic Software, a company which provides software for EFT networks. "[People are] already used to that interface. It provides choices in an easy fashion, not too many selections at a time, and they just choose. I think that would work quite well."

Companies hoping to cash in on e-voting have two choices when it comes to deployment: manufacture new terminals exclusively for voting or retrofit existing ATMs to include voting functionality.

Larry Ensminger, vice president of corporate development at Global Election Systems Inc., believes the latter option is more likely. He feels that many existing ATMs are well suited for the task and, provided that the banking industry chooses to work with software manufacturers, a solution could be reached in the near future.

"I would say we could be there in the next two or three years," Ensminger said. "I think the technology is pretty much there. The issue that is going to be an inhibiting factor is public acceptance with respect to encryption and privacy and security."

How secure?

More than one proponent of electronic voting -- and touchscreen ATM-style voting in particular -- has made this point: if the technology is secure enough to handle banking transactions, isn't it trustworthy enough to handle votes? It's a point well taken: financial transactions are the backbone of our economy, and the fact that they happen as often as they do -- and as accurately as they do -- speaks well of the existing infrastructure. If the process runs smoothly for dollars and cents, why wouldn't it do the same for votes?

But despite such confidence, any new approach to voting is viewed with a necessary level of caution. Consider vote fraud. For as long as there have been elections, there have been entities which tried to buy and sell votes. Wouldn't electronic voting make such activities harder to combat?

"There are a lot of things that can be done," Klein said. "You could issue specific voting cards, just like voter registration cards today. You could have an ATM voting card, perhaps with some other identifying stuff there -- a PIN number, or a Social Security number. Eventually you could get to the point where Big Brother knows everything about who you are."

Which raises another sticky issue: our entire concept of voting is based on the notion that all votes are anonymous. Will it be possible for an electronic voting network to operate at a sufficient security level without keeping track of each voter and who they voted for?

"I would say there would have to be some paper trail -- albeit electronic -- on what voting took place," Klein said. "You will have naysayers contesting every election unless you can conclusively prove who voted for whom."

Ensminger disagreed with this idea, however.

"Who said that you had to have a paper trail?" he asked. "In our current environment, when a ballot is cast on a touch screen, we create a graphical representation of that vote, and we send it to a sub-file and scramble them all up, so a single ballot can't be traced back to a specific voter. We can print out those files and count them by hand if we wanted to."

Many possible solutions have been discussed when it comes to electronic voting security. Some of them, such as retina scans, bring "Star Trek" and "Mission Impossible" to mind. But other forms of biometrics are already feasible: for instance, a digital photo could be taken of the voter, and software analysis would compare key features of that person's face to an existing photo residing on a hard drive.

Ensminger feels that technological challenges, while formidable, won't be the biggest hurdle. The real challenge will be voter confidence. Voters have always had a hard time accepting new voting procedures. Will the public feel confident voting at an ATM at any point in the near future?

"That's the million dollar question," he said. "I don't know where the level of public acceptance is going to be, particularly in view of what happened in November. That just raised everybody's awareness. It just seems like there's a story every other day in the newspaper about security breakdowns. So I don't know. I think it's going to come in short packets of acceptance."

Possible disadvantages

While industry proponents are quick to point out the many reasons why ATM voting should be fast-tracked, there are some notable issues that need to be resolved.

"Could it be done technologically? Yes. Is it practical? Probably not at this point," Klein said. "There is currently online voting at ATM machines in South America, but that's a different concept -- it's one single ballot, a national ballot. If you look at the US, there are a billion different ballots. Where is the database going to reside?"

Other potential problems which will need to be addressed:

• Studies show that certain demographic groups -- the elderly, for instance -- are more likely to shy away from what they perceive to be "intimidating" technology. These people might be less likely to vote if they had to do so at an ATM.
• Some geographical areas have low concentrations of ATMs. Would machines be brought in just for Election Day, or would voters be expected to travel?
• Plan B – if the power goes out at a conventional voting booth five minutes before the polls close, voters can still use pencil and paper. What if the power goes out -- as it invariably will, somewhere in the country -- on Election Day? An endless chain of lawsuits might follow.
• Integrity of the data – it's one thing to collect the information, quite another to make sure that the information remains valid and unchanged. Some disheartening statistics from the Voting Integrity Project, an independent think-tank: 20 percent of organizations with external network access have been hacked, and 50 percent suffered "an information-security-related financial loss" during the past two years. What if electronic votes were lost in a hacker attack – what recourse would the losing party have?
• System compatibility – the network of machines that would be required to pull off national e-voting would be an elaborate one; software from one state or voting district would have to talk to software from another.
• Cost – who would be responsible for purchasing the new machines, or retrofitting older ones: the states, the federal government or each individual voting district?

Moving ahead

Naturally, savvy companies were quick to notice the profit potential in November's fiasco. Hardware and software manufacturers began considering ways to tweak their products to facilitate electronic voting. And some big name collaborations have come about: Microsoft, Dell Computer and Unisys recently announced that they were working together to develop an "end-to-end" voting system that would utilize smart cards. Compaq and Cisco Systems also announced that they were teaming up to work on voting technology.

To be sure, whichever companies win the holy grail of this story – government adoption – will make a fortune in the process. But they will also take upon their shoulders the responsibility to make sure that America's most cherished, most fundamental right is never compromised. And that could be a substantial weight to carry.

"There's another technological disadvantage," said Klein, who formerly ran the ATM program at Florida-based BankAtlantic. "We are all exposed to communications faults and failures, and some of them are massive. A few years ago, I had 150 ATMs down for 10 days because of an MCI Worldcom mess-up in Georgia. What if something like that were to coincide with November 7th?"

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