What To Do About Voting Technology? Know Before You Go

[Image courtesy of mamatoga]

On Monday, I was a guest on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss a variety of election issues.

While most of the hour was dedicated to voter ID and eligibility, right at the end of the show Diane asked me about voting machines in the fall election. Here’s our exchange, taken from the show’s transcript:

REHM
And you’ve raised at the very end of the program the issue I’d like to raise with you and that is the voting machines themselves. There are an awful lot of people worried about those. What can you say to them?

CHAPIN
Well, I think there are election officials who are worried about them. I mean, just anything else that you buy at state and local government, you’ve got maintenance and upkeep issues. Again, if you’re a voter, know how your machine works, know how to fill out your ballot, know the rules for correcting a ballot if it makes a mistake. Machines of any kind can work well. They can work poorly. Your responsibility on Election Day is to make sure your vote not only goes in the front of machine but comes out properly through the back.

REHM
But how can you know that it’s working properly?

CHAPIN
In a precinct count optical-scan state, for example, know what happens, how to look for a machine kicking back a ballot for — over votes.

REHM
How do you know that? How do you know that?

CHAPIN
You can reach out to local election officials. You can ask questions to poll workers. One thing that election administrators are very good at is making lots of information available. You have to know how the machine works, and if you don’t know, ask questions because people are there to help.

REHM
But if you’re asking questions and holding up the line, as one of our earlier callers said, you know, that can get pretty difficult for voters.

CHAPIN
Yeah. But I think that’s the lesson for voters, is that voting doesn’t begin and end on Election Day. Just as ideally you want to know who you’re going to vote for before you enter that voting booth, you should know how the process works. And if you’re not comfortable with the process, there is an opportunity, and I would even suggest the responsibility, to make sure you know how the process works.

REHM
So you need to know how that voting machine works before you go into the polling booth?

CHAPIN
Ideally, you should, yes.

REHM
But how do you have that opportunity?

CHAPIN
Again, I think you reach out to your local election official. I think most of them have websites. There are opportunities to do demos with voting machines. Sometimes it’s familiar. But if it’s a new technology, don’t be afraid to ask questions [be]cause there’s no shortage to people willing to answer them.

At the risk of agreeing with myself (says he, preparing to do just that) I think this is an important point for voters to keep in mind. The work that’s going on right now to make voting machines more transparent and auditable is incredibly important, but most of it isn’t visible to the voter, even if it benefits her. For that reason, I think voters who are concerned about voting technology owe it to themselves to maximize their chances of a valid vote by knowing the process in advance and being willing to get help if things don’t work the way they expect.

As I’ve said before (and probably should have said on Monday), an educated consumer is our best voter.