Aging voting boxes create unease

Lack of paper trail in Pa. Nov. 8 could create ‘nightmare’

HARRISBURG, Pa. — On Election Day, voters in Pennsylvania will be touching the lighted buttons on electronic vote counters that were once seen as the solution to messy paper ballots.

But in the event of a disputed election, this battleground state — one of the few that relies almost entirely on computerized voting, with no paper backup — could end up creating a far bigger mess.

Stored in a locked warehouse near downtown Harrisburg, the 1980s-era voting machines used by Dauphin County look like discarded washing machines lined up in rows. When unfolded and powered up, the gray metal boxes become the familiar voting booth, complete with a curtain for privacy.

Much may rest on the reliability and security of these aging machines after an unprecedentedly combative presidential campaign that is ending with Donald Trump warning repeatedly of a “rigged election” and his refusal at the last presidential debate to commit to accepting the results on Nov. 8.

The GOP nominee has specifically cited Pennsylvania as a state where the election may be “stolen,” despite no evidence to back up such a claim and several polls showing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton well ahead of him here.

“The only way we can lose,” he told a recent rally in Altoona, “is if cheating goes on.”

Trump’s talk has put extra pressure on election officials to make sure the voting is free and fair and the tally is accurate and reliable. And there is little reason to doubt it will be.

But computer experts say the old electronic voting machines have a hidden flaw that worries them in the event of a very close election. The machines do not produce a paper ballot or receipt, leaving nothing to be recounted if the election outcome was in doubt, such as in 2000, when the nation awaited anxiously for Florida to re-examine those hanging chads.

“The nightmare scenario would be if Pennsylvania decides the election and it is very close. You would have no paper records to do a recount,” said Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program and co-author of a report last year on the risk posed by old voting machines.

About three-fourths of the nation’s voters will be marking paper ballots, most of which will be counted electronically by an optical scanner, said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that has advocated for paper ballots that can be counted electronically and recounted by hand as a way to assure trust in a close election.

Most of the battleground states — Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia among them — have switched to voting systems with a paper trail. By contrast, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina entrust their votes entirely to electronic touch screens. Pennsylvania is among those states that rely almost entirely on computerized voting, according to Verified Voting.

Pennsylvania election officials say they are well aware of the challenges.

Gerald Feaser Jr., elections director for Dauphin County, agrees the older voting machines “are not sophisticated,” but he said that may be a virtue. “They can’t be hacked,” he said, because they were never connected to the internet.

County election directors like Feaser nevertheless have a heavy duty to make sure each of their voting machines is tested, working properly and correctly programmed for its precinct. Dauphin County has 162 polling precincts around Harrisburg and in the surrounding rural areas. Pennsylvania does not allow early voting, so the election begins at 7 a.m. on Nov. 8.

Marian Schneider, a voting rights lawyer who was appointed last year as Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary for elections, said she was well aware of the problem with electronic machines. Still, the “risk of tampering is very low,” she said.

But Andrew Appel, a Princeton professor of computer science, said that given a screwdriver and seven minutes with an electronic machine, he could “install a vote-stealing program” that would be hard to detect and shift a percentage of the votes.

In states like Pennsylvania, these voting machines “are delivered to polling places several days before the election — to elementary schools, churches and firehouses,” he said. That creates the risk of tampering. “This is not just one glitch in one manufacturer’s machine. It’s the very nature of computers,” he told a House subcommittee last month.

Feaser said state and local officials take precautions to ensure machines are kept secure and can’t be tampered with.

But Appel nevertheless recommends that the nation “eliminate the use of paperless touch-screen voting machines” after this year’s election.

In Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and more than 1,300 voting precincts, election officials do random tests of voting machines on Election Day to check for tampering or irregularities.

Election officials and most party leaders — Republicans and Democrats — reject Trump’s talk of the election being “stolen” or “rigged.”

In Pennsylvania, polling places have a judge and two inspectors — representing the two major parties — to watch over the voting. And each side can have three designated “poll watchers” monitor them. They may challenge voters who do not live in the area or are not who they say they are.

Michael Korns, the Republican chairman in Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania, said he sees “no reason to be concerned” about the fairness of the vote counting. “I don’t believe there is any danger in the election being ‘rigged.’ That’s just what people say when you lose,” he said.

MATT ROURKE/AP Pennsylvania relies almost entirely on computerized voting, according to Verified Voting. Election officials say they are well aware of the challenges.