Electronic Voting: What You Need To Know

William Rivers Pitt
truthout.org
20 October 2003

Author's Note | In July of 2003, I sat down for an extended, free-wheeling interview in Denver with three of the smartest people I have ever met. Rebecca Mercuri, Barbara Simons, and David Dill have been at the forefront of the debate surrounding the rise of electronic touch-screen voting machines in our national elections. Sufficed to say, they are three computer scientists/engineers who are as well versed on these matters as anyone you will ever meet. Scroll quickly to the bottom of this interview before reading to view their CVs.

If you are completely new to this, the issue in brief: In the aftermath of the 2000 election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act. After much wrangling, it appears the powers that be have settled upon electronic touch-screen voting machines as the solution. There are, however, a number of serious concerns about the viability of these machines that have been raised. The matter strikes to the heart of our democracy. If the votes are not counted properly, our democracy is broken forever. More data on this is linked below, after the CVs.

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