With the 2008 election only weeks away, voting officials are meeting with registered voters around the area to answer important questions about electronic voting.

You won’t be seeing the bulky vending machine-sized voting booths this November. Instead you will be casting your vote on a fully electronic computer look-a-like complete with touch screen. But don’t let there state-of-the-art voting kiosks fool you. Like most technology, there is still plenty of room for error.

In 2002, Congress passes the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which provided states with $3.9 billion dollars in order to upgrade old voting systems. These direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines are now used statewide and replace the heavy lever and punch-card voting. The DRE is able to calculate votes by using computer software that processes the data onto a memory component. The memory component then tabulates the ballots, stores the results and prints a copy of the results at the end of the election.

Much debate has been made over the voting technology since the reliability and accuracy of the equipment is always in question. For instance, electronic voting systems are not hack-proof. Vendors who control voting units could single-handedly influence the tally results. In as little as one minute a vendor with physical access to the hardware could install a memory card with a malicious code that would steal votes from one candidate and give them to their opponent without being detected.

Radford Registrar Tracy Howard said, “I feel very comfortable in stating that we don’t have any malicious officials.”

A virus could be installed just as easily. The virus would spread quickly and silently from machine to machine. The fraudulent software deletes itself after the polls close on Election Day, leaving no trace of fraud.

According to Howard, the voting systems in Radford are not networked together so this will not be an issue locally but could be an unfortunate reality elsewhere.

To ensure that the voting units are operating properly before an election a logic and accuracy test is conducted by the county or city. This test includes downloading to the machine the actual ballot that will be used in the election. A vendor will then cast numerous votes on each piece of equipment to test whether or not the votes are being recorded correctly. The unit is then safely stored in an undisclosed location until the polls open on Election Day.

Before voting commences on the morning of Nov. 4, a voting official will print out a zero-proof report to verify that no votes have been recorded for either candidate. Experts still claim, however, that even with these safety measures, technology can still fail and human tampering cannot always be prevented.

Fairfax County, Virginia, learned first-hand some of the problems with electronic voting in the November 2003 General Election. A major system overload occurred when 953 voting systems attempted to send their results to the election center after the polls closed.

Wikipedia reports that “50 percent of the precincts were unable to report results until the following day. Also some voters complained that they would cast their vote for a particular candidate and the indicator of that vote would go off shortly after. Had they not noticed, their vote for that candidate would have remained uncounted; an unknown number of voters were affected by this.”

A voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) is another option to guarantee citizens that their vote is being properly calculated. Eighteen states have required all precincts to use the paper-trail method with a mandatory audit as a precaution. Virginia is not one them.

The paper-trail method requires that at the end of each voters session the individual will verify their vote on a paper receipt printed automatically from the machine. Once the voter confirms his or her choice they submit the paper into a secure ballot box. If something were to go awry on election day as it did in Fairfax County, there will be a paper trail for officials to examine.

Optical scanning is another paper-trail method used in calculating votes and they are used in some parts of Virginia. Voters fill in an oval beside the candidate of their choice and then insert the paper into a machine that will then “read” the ballot and record you vote.

This method has the lowest margin of error compared to all other methods, however, it does not meet the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements without additional devices. Whereas the touch-screens are the only systems designed especially for providing privacy to disabled voters, including those who are hearing and seeing impaired. Over-votes will also not be an issue with electronic voting as they were in the 2000 general election in Florida with the punch-card method.

Questions also remain about a “stolen” election. In fact, journalist Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say the 2008 election has already been stolen and they have started a campaign to steal back your vote.

Although there are a numerous pros and cons about each method of voting, one thing seems certain: This will be an election of record numbers. In Virginia alone there are over 220,000 new voters.

Dr. Prem Uppuluri, Radford University Assistant Professor of Information Technology, predicts that most states will be using electronic voting next month. While voting officials say that every safeguard will be taken to reduce the number of possible problems, it is very likely that problems will occur.

“Perceptions have improved here in Radford,” Howard said. “We have to have a certain amount of trust in our systems.”

Stephanie Spurlock is a Media Studies student at Radford University.