Election Integrity and Electronic Voting Machines in 2018 Georgia, USA

E-Vote-ID 2019 Proceedings

16 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2019 Last revised: 5 Aug 2019

See all articles by Kellie Ottoboni

Kellie Ottoboni

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Statistics

Philip B. Stark

University of California, Berkeley

Date Written: July 24, 2019

Abstract

Direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems have been shown time and time again to be vulnerable to hacking and malfunctioning. Despite mounting evidence that DREs are unfit for use, some states in the U.S. continue to use them for local, state, and federal elections. Georgia uses DREs exclusively, among many practices that have made its elections unfair and insecure. We give a brief history of election security and integrity in Georgia from the early 2000s to the 2018 election. Nonparametric permutation tests give strong evidence that something caused DREs not to record a substantial number of votes in this election. The undervote rate in the Lieutenant Governor’s race was far higher for voters who used DREs than for voters who used paper ballots. Undervote rates were strongly associated with ethnicity, with higher undervote rates in precincts where the percentage of Black voters was higher. There is specific evidence of DRE malfunction, too: one of the seven DREs in the Winterville Train Depot polling place had results that appear to be “flipped” along party lines. None of these associations or anomalies can reasonably be ascribed to chance.

Keywords: permutation testing, anomaly detection, DREs

Suggested Citation

Ottoboni, Kellie and Stark, Philip B., Election Integrity and Electronic Voting Machines in 2018 Georgia, USA (July 24, 2019). E-Vote-ID 2019 Proceedings, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3426250

Kellie Ottoboni (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Statistics ( email )

United States

Philip B. Stark

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

Department of Statistics
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States
510-642-2781 (Phone)

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