The growing adoption of electronic voting systems is intended to quell questions about the validity of ballots.
Despite the potential for technology to make voting more convenient and tabulation more efficient, the rush to implement systems without clear standards for security and reliability is a major issue. The problem is not that electronic voting systems, including the popular touch-screen systems that record votes digitally, are inherently bad. But they are subject to all of the bugs and vulnerabilities of any IT system, and experience has shown than any system that doesn't have security built in from the beginning is subject to manipulation. When such systems are used in institutions of public trust, such as elections, security must be independently verified to be meaningful. A variety of electronic systems examined by experts have displayed flaws that could be used to affect the outcome of an election. Supporters of the systems dismiss these issues by saying that no e-Voting system has been gamed to throw an election and that no system is perfect.
