DREs With Paper Trails By: Megan Reinhart, Michele Lafauci

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DREs With Paper TrailsBy Megan Reinhart,
Michele Lafauci Michele Tetenbaum
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General Information

• DRE Direct Recording Electronic voting machines
  are a fast and efficient way for voters to cast
  their ballot.
• Paper Trails - Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail
  (VVPAT) or Verified Paper Record (VPR) is an
  independent verification system for voting
  machines. It allows voters to verify that their
  vote was cast correctly. This system allows the
  detection of election fraud or malfunction
• Audit an official inspection of an individuals
  accounts

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States that use DREs with paper trails

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Missouri
• Nevada
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Utah
• West Virginia
• Washington
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

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• How it works
• In most cases, before a ballot is cast, voters
  must activate the DRE machines with a card swipe
  or cartridge system.
• The candidates are usually depicted on a touch-
  screen monitor. This type of monitor allows the
  voter to touch a marked spot with his or her
  finger.
• The DRE voting machine records the votes through
  memory components that store data.
• Election officials transport the memory device to
  a central location, similar to paper based
  ballots

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Benefits

• DREs contain a broad array of assistive
  technologies for handicapped people, allowing
  their vote to remain private.
• DREs increase the speed of vote counting.
• DREs can be programmed to provide ballots in
  multiple languages in a single machine.
• DREs offer the strongest form of immediate
  feedback to the voter, determining if there are
  any problems such as under voting or over voting.
• DREs support elections of more races and non
  traditional voting systems including approval
  voting or instant runoff.
• Since there are different models of DREs,
  problems in one model will not appear in all of
  them.
• Easier to detect fraud by using DREs with paper
  trails increases voter confidence more
  reliable.

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Problems/Risks

• Some people are uneducated as to how to use DRE
  machines.
• Potential for fraud
• Computer hacking
• Voting machine viruses
• Altering codes
• Machine programmer bribery
• Computer bugs

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Mitigation Strategies

• States and counties could provide DRE tutorials
  before Election Day, educating voters on how to
  use the machines.
• Parallel Testing election officials feed the
  same data into a different machine and see if the
  same results occur
• Security checks and interviews for election
  workers
• Voter verify paper audit trails so voters can
  make sure their ballot cast was accurate

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Conclusion

• Because paper audit trails are costly, Congress
  and the states should require that future voting
  machines have verifiable audit trails, and not
  require machines that create verifiable paper
  audit.
• In 2004, almost 34 of registered voters in the
  US had used some type of DRE voting, proving that
  voters consider this system to be reliable.