In a further alarming problem, the security protections on many of the older machines are inadequate, leaving them vulnerable to hacker attacks. Some are simply crashing as their memory cards fail others are recording inaccurate votes as the glue comes unstuck between the screen of the voting machine and the computer wiring behind it, putting the touch technology out of sync.
The Brennan Center study found several ways in which the machines were already ceasing to function properly. The new iteration of the voting machine is more complicated in its internal makeup, with more moving parts, making it less durable.
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The machines that were bought after 2000 ran largely on 1990s computer designs, and unlike the sturdy manual machines they replaced, they were not built to last for decades. That decision has, ironically, led to today’s pending crisis.Ĭould we be facing the next ‘hanging chad’ debacle? Photograph: Rhona Wise/EPA In the wake of the national embarrassment over the election, most states moved to bring on a new generation of voting machines. The supreme court ended the recounts in December 2000, which meant Florida’s votes went to Bush, handing him the election despite Gore’s 0.5% edge in the national popular vote. In the end, some 172,000 mis-votes were recorded. The prolonged furore reached the US supreme court and introduced the world to arcane terminology such as “hanging chads” and “butterfly ballots”. The nail-bitingly close contest between Bush and Al Gore went down to the wire in Florida, where recounts were ordered because of failing paper-based punch machines. The risks involved in conducting a presidential election with flakey technology in one of the globe’s largest and most complex democracies were amply displayed in 2000. He went on: “We wouldn’t do this with anything else – you wouldn’t wait for your fire truck to breakdown before replacing it.” Congress has shown absolutely no interest in doing so.” “No one is expressing any interest in paying for new machines. Norden said that despite the nationwide scope of the problem, little was being invested in finding a solution. “That’s what we are seeing today with voting machines – we are reaching the end of their lifetime.” Lawrence Norden, co-author of the Brennan report, said that voting machines were no different from laptops in the sense that they rarely survived for 15 years. Bearing in mind that today’s iteration of voting equipment is computer-driven, the technology is ageing fast. In a further stark finding, Brennan found that 43 states are using machines that by election day next year will be at least 10 years old, while 14 states will have machines at least 15 years old.
The jurisdictions with equipment reaching the end of its natural lifespan cover about 40 million registered voters, and account for 387 of the 538 electoral college votes that decide the presidency. The center discovered that at least 31 states have recognized they need to buy new voting machines within the next five years, yet, of those, 22 said they had no idea how they were going to pay for them. Yet most states are operating voting machines that are perilously close to exceeding their sell-by-date, Brennan has found.
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With the presidential election of November 2016 fast approaching, it is already very late in the cycle for states to be able to update their technology in time. As Louisiana’s secretary of state Tom Schedler put it to an official hearing recently: “It’s getting a little scary out there.”
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