DRE voting machine

File:Brazilian DRE voting machine for 2022 elections.jpgian DRE voting machines]]

The idea of voting by push button with electrical technology used to total the votes dates back to the 19th century when Frank Wood of Boston was granted a patent on a direct-recording electrical voting machine.Frank S. Wood, Electric voting-machine, {{US patent|616174}}, Granted Dec. 20, 1898. (Thomas Edison's electrical voting system patent is sometimes cited in this regard, but it was intended for tallying roll-call votes in legislative chambers; as such, it is more like an audience response system.) The idea of electrical voting was pursued with much more vigor in the 20th century. Numerous patents were filed in the 1960s, many of them by AVM Corporation (the former Automatic Voting Machine Corporation), the company that had a near monopoly on mechanical voting machine at the time.Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, Broken Ballots, CSLI Publications, 2012; see Section 5.1, pages 93-95.

The first direct-recording electronic voting machine to be used in a government election was the Video Voter. This was developed by the Frank Thornber Company in Chicago.Richard H. McKay, William R. Smith, and Herman Deutsch, Voting system, {{US Patent|4025757}}, granted May 24, 1977.Richard H. McKay, Paul G. Ziebold, James D. Kirby, Douglas R. Hetzel, and James U. Snydacker, Electronic voting machine, {{US Patent|3793505}}, granted Feb. 19, 1974. The Video Voter saw its first trial use in 1974 near Chicago, Illinois, and remained in use until 1980.Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, Broken Ballots, CSLI Publications, 2012; see Section 5.2, page 96.

Microvote and Shoup Voting Machine Corporation entered the market in the mid 1980s with the MV-464 and the Shouptronic.William H. Carson, Electronic Voting Machine, {{US patent|4649264}}, granted Mar. 10, 1987.Robert J. Boram, Electronic voting machine and system, {{US patent|4641240}}, granted Feb. 3, 1987. Both of these machines saw widespread use; over 11,000 Shouptronic machines had been sold by 1993. In the years that followed, the rights to the Shouptronic were transferred to Guardian Voting and then to Danaher Controls, which sold it as the ELECTronic 1242.Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, Broken Ballots, CSLI Publications, 2012; see Sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2, pages 96-99.

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DREs prevent overvotes and provide immediate feedback to the voter about undervotes. They avoid ballots with ambiguous marks where voter intent can be unclear.{{Cite news |last=Writer |first=Steve Miller, Journal Staff |date=2006-11-07 |title=Oddly marked ovals bane of poll workers' day |language=en |work=Rapid City Journal |url=https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/top-stories/oddly-marked-ovals-bane-of-poll-workers-day/article_99cdf7c2-e489-581f-9cde-c804a5679419.html |access-date=2020-05-17 |archive-date=2020-06-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200624094112/https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/top-stories/oddly-marked-ovals-bane-of-poll-workers-day/article_99cdf7c2-e489-581f-9cde-c804a5679419.html |url-status=live }}

Like electronic ballot markers, DREs can be programmed to offer ballots in multiple languages, and they let people with disabilities vote without assistance, which would remove the anonymity of their vote. The machines can use headphones and other adaptive technology to provide accessibility.

Additionally, with DRE voting systems there is no risk of exhausting the supply of paper ballots, and they remove the need for printing paper ballots, which cost $0.10 to $0.55 per ballot,Georgia: {{Cite web |url=https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766827-OSET.html |title=Georgia State Election Technology Acquisition, A Reality Check |last=Perez |first=Edward, and Gregory Miller |date=March 2019 |website=OSET Institute |language=en |access-date=2020-03-06 |archive-date=2020-07-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730231209/https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766827-OSET.html |url-status=live }} though some versions print results on thermal paper, which has ongoing costs.

Skepticism about the integrity of DRE voting machines led to the creation of election forensics, which can help identify election fraud.{{cite journal|doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.12.053007.145205|doi-access=free|title=Voting Technologies|year=2011|last1=Stewart|first1=Charles|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=14|pages=353–378}}

DREs can cause more delay than paper ballots at busy times, since every voter needs access to a machine.{{Cite news |last1=Corasaniti |first1=Nick |last2=Saul |first2=Stephanie |date=2020-06-11 |title=Georgia Havoc Raises New Doubts on Pricey Voting Machines |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/georgia-voting-machines.html |access-date=2020-08-11 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2021-01-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109123403/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/georgia-voting-machines.html |url-status=live }} Queuing theory calculates that waits of an hour result from known variations in when voters arrive, number of voters per machine, and average time a voter spends with a machine.{{Cite web |last=Edelstein |first=William A. |date=2008-01-28 |title=Why Computer DRE Voting Machines Cause Long Lines— Why Paper Ballot/Optical Scan Can Prevent Lines |url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/messages/downloadsexceeded.html |access-date=2020-08-11 |website=Penn State University |archive-date=2021-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210131173658/http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/messages/downloadsexceeded.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite news |last=Edelstein |first=William A. |date=2006-11-14 |title=New Voting Systems for New York - Long Lines and High Cost |work=New Yorkers for Verified Voting |s2cid=59115735 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/81cf/92ddcada0a8a17b52ff72d5f5145a94141d4.pdf |access-date=2020-08-11 |archive-date=2021-03-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312141304/https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/New-Voting-Systems-for-NY%E2%80%94-Long-Lines-and-High-Cost-Edelstein/81cf92ddcada0a8a17b52ff72d5f5145a94141d4?p2df |url-status=live }}

{{See|Vote counting#Errors in direct-recording electronic voting|Electronic voting in the United States#Errors in direct-recording electronic voting}}

Issues have included public web access to the software, before it is loaded into machines for each election, and programming errors which increment different candidates than voters select.{{Cite web |last=Norden |first=Lawrence |date=2010-09-16 |title=Voting system failures: a database solution |url=https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Report_Voting_Machine_Failures_Database-Solution.pdf |access-date=2020-07-07 |website=Brennan Center, NYU |archive-date=2020-11-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126221213/https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Report_Voting_Machine_Failures_Database-Solution.pdf |url-status=live }}

In 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany found that with voting machines the "determination of the result must be able to be examined by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject." They further found the DRE-type voting machines, used in parliamentary elections under current German law,§35 of the Federal Electoral Act (Bundeswahlgesetz – BWG) permitted voting machines but were unconstitutional without further qualification. The decision does not ban electronic voting but implements a higher standard.[http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg09-019en.html German Federal Constitutional Court, Press release no. 19/2009 of 3 March 2009] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090404111620/http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg09-019en.html |date=4 April 2009 }}

• Diebold Election Systems AccuVote-TS (Manipulation of the votes by the Princeton University){{Cite web |url=http://citp.princeton.edu/voting/ |title=Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine |access-date=2011-05-19 |archive-date=2008-01-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080119013008/http://citp.princeton.edu/voting/ |url-status=live }}
• Nedap ES3B (Manipulation of the votes by a citizen group){{Cite web |url=http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf |title=Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B voting computer, a security analysis |access-date=2007-02-13 |archive-date=2010-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100107134107/http://wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf |url-status=live }}[http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/79106 Dutch citizens group cracks Nedap's voting computer] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070117143032/http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/79106 |date=2007-01-17 }}
• SDU voting computers (Violating the secrecy of the ballot using Van Eck phreaking, tested by the Dutch secret service AIVD)[http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80302 Use of SDU voting computers banned during Dutch general elections] (Heise.de, 31. October 2006) {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080923142636/http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80302 |date=September 23, 2008 }}

Attacks have also been performed on both DRE machines and optical scan voting machines, which count paper ballots. (See California study, "Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter""[http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/bishop/notes/2006-inter/2006-inter.pdf Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224102340/http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/bishop/notes/2006-inter/2006-inter.pdf |date=2021-02-24 }}").

Whether it is a DRE or an optical scan machine, the opportunity for tampering applies to persons with inside access (including government workers) and to a lesser extent, outside hackers. Therefore, framing election tampering issues as "hacking" may not be an accurate framework for public concerns. Within the context of protecting voting rights, it would not matter whether vote alteration was done by an outsider or an insider. What is of most importance is the ability to perform an audit with a record generated and verified by the voter at the time their vote is cast, all of which is lost with the sole use of these DRE systems.

• Electronic voting
• Open Voting Consortium
• Optical scan voting system
• Security seal
• Voter-verified paper audit trail
• Electronic voting in Brazil
• Electronic voting in the United States#Direct-recording electronic counting
• Vote counting#Direct-recording electronic counting
• Voting machine
• Voting_machine#Direct-recording_electronic_(DRE)

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|DRE voting machines}}

• [http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html Electronic voting website] by Rebecca Mercuri
• [http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ Verified Voting]

Category:Electronic voting methods

pt:Urna eletrônica