Pa. Voters on E-Voting

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By LInda Harbrecht (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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Pennsylvania has joined dozens of states in purchasing touch-screen electronic voting systems to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was designed to phase out lever and punch-card machines after the Florida "hanging chads" debacle during the 2000 presidential election and recount.

First collaborative survey between Lehigh and Muhlenberg

The survey measuring voter attitudes comes at a time when the eyes of political observers are focused on Pennsylvania, a perennial battleground state that is currently supplying the backdrop for high-visibility races for the governorship and the U.S. Senate.

The timing of this survey-the first collaborative survey venture between Lehigh and Muhlenberg-also dovetails with a number of recent news reports, which indicate growing concerns about e-voting that include insecure machinery and improper procedures to safeguard the sanctity of the vote.

In late September alone, a widely publicized report from Princeton University computer expert Ed Felten showed that a hacker with basic knowledge of computers was able to break into and alter vote totals on a Diebold voting machine in less than a minute. And, just last week, emergency legislation was proposed by U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., and John Kerry, D-Mass., to provide paper ballots for voters who are reluctant to use new electronic voting machines.

Concerns about security of the machines were first raised by academics and voting experts-including Lopresti and his Lehigh colleagues-followed by election officials. The concerns became more urgent after the new technology led to widespread problems in several state primaries held in Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and elsewhere.

The Lehigh University/Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion survey sampled more than 523 households throughout the state from Sept. 18-25. It has a margin of error of 4.3 percent.

A full report of survey findings can be viewed in

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L. Harbrecht is from Lehigh University.

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