Electronic Voting Machines and the Standards-Setting Process

Abstract

As the 2004 presidential election approaches, revelations of security and accuracy flaws in the electronic voting machines that were intended to correct the failures of the discredited voting technology threaten to further undermine the public's trust in voting. Testing results, independent reports, and internal corporate documents released to the public have exposed not only the vulnerabilities to tampering of some voting machine software, but have also exposed its potential for malfunction. Although the Supreme Court's application of equal protection to election administration in Bush v. Gore could have sweeping consequences, this Article is more concerned with standards, specifically technical standards. This Article argues that our country is in a critical and difficult transition to novel voting technology. Federal technical standards are needed to quiet raging debates about the most important values in American voting. Standards have the opportunity to provide guidance or to only further cloud the debate over voting standards.

Keywords: voting, administrative law, technology, electronic voting

JEL Classification: K10, K33