Security expert Bruce Schneier turns his eye to the subject of voter recounts in elections and the effect of electronic voting machines.
When a candidate has evidence of systemic errors, a recount can fix a wrong result — but only if the recount can catch the error. With electronic voting machines, all too often there simply isn’t the data: there are no votes to recount.
This year’s election in Florida’s 13th Congressional District is such an example. The winner won by a margin of 373 out of 237,861 total votes, but as many as 18,000 votes were not recorded by the electronic voting machines. These votes came from areas where the loser was favored over the winner, and would have likely changed the result.
The spread of electronic voting machines which have no paper backup is of concern to many people especially when the result is of such importance as deciding who might be the next government and doubts remain to the security of the systems.
