Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections

Election transparency is the fundamental basis of election integrity. In transparent elections, all the processes of handling and counting ballots are completely open to public view. Nothing is hidden, nothing is secret -- except, of course, each individual's voting choices.

Election fraud and miscounts have occurred throughout history, and they will continue to occur. Transparency is the only way to minimize them, but with electronic voting, transparency is eclipsed. Electronic processes that record and count the votes are not open to public scrutiny. Courts have ruled that election software is a trade secret, so even a losing candidate with a computer consultant cannot view it.

With electronic voting, the most important and vulnerable election processes -- storing and tallying the votes -- are performed in secret, without public oversight. These processes were not developed by government officials charged with ensuring election integrity, but by anonymous software engineers, hired by vendors and not publicly accountable for the results of their work. One would expect overwhelming benefits to accompany this sacrifice of transparency and the resulting loss of public control over election processes. That's the myth. Ironically, overwhelming disadvantages accompany the sacrifice. The logical question is "Why make the sacrifice?" It's a question more and more people are asking.

The facts presented in this document dispel many of the myths surrounding electronic voting. It is crucial to lay these myths to rest quickly, for as long as they are held by decision-makers, our democracy is at risk.