Utah Voters for Open and Transparent Elections (U-VOTE) is a new organization formed specifically to address issues related to electronic voting machines and the threat they pose to the integrity of Utah elections. Historically, Utah has not experienced the well publicized problems we saw in Florida during the 2000 election or in Ohio in 2004. County clerks throughout Utah have done a masterful job of managing our elections with integrity, ensuring every vote is fairly and accurately counted and deserve the thanks of every citizen of Utah for their efforts.

Unfortunately, in response to the 2000 Florida fiasco the United States is turning to new and largely untested technology that jeopardizes the integrity of elections not only here in Utah, but throughout the nation. Electronic voting machines are being touted as the savior of our election system and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed in response to the 2000 elections is wrongly being interpreted as requiring this wholesale change.

In California, the very touchscreen voting machines being considered for purchase in this case recently failed to win the approval of a state advisory panel. The reason: a significant failure rate originally reported at approximately 10% but later revealed to exceed 20%. According to VoteTrustUSA.org “of the 96 voting machines tested, 19 failed with a total of 21 crashes resulting in a blue screen and messages about an ‘illegal operation’ or a ‘fatal exception error.’” VoteTrust continues, “Also, 10 machines had a total of 11 printer jams. Nearly one-third of the test machines failed in one way or another.” VoteTrustUSA cites an article from the Oakland Tribune as its primary source.

Utah voters, to our knowledge, have never had reason to doubt their votes are being recorded and counted accurately. They know should a recount be necessary the machinery required to carry it out has been maintained and has a history of functioning properly. Furthermore, should votes need to be counted or examined by hand, a paper trail is available that can be used to verify the integrity of election results. In this instance, the paper trail is a scroll of paper and the machines producing it have a documented history of paper jams and software problems. We ask, if the system isn’t broken, why fix it?

U-VOTE reminds the council HAVA compliance does not rest with the purchase of these machines. We understand the need to provide the physically disabled with greater access to machines that enable them to cast a secret ballot as all US citizens are entitled to do. However, the purchase of a small number of electronic voting machines that will provide one machine per polling place for use by the disabled should they choose is sufficient to meet this requirement without necessitating a wholesale change in Utah's voting machinery.