Debate: Electronic Voting

There are many controversial topics in this politically correct world. There are topics about morals, standards, and personal ethics. One of the newest debatable subjects however, is the one concerning this new centuries way of casting an individual's vote, through electronic voting. Electronic voting is a way to cast a person's ballot using an electronic voting machine that is touch screen. There are many advantages to using these machines during an election but there are also many disadvantages to using them as well. Before a person can make their own judgments on this subject it is important to understand and view both sides of the argument. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been put forth to upgrade voting systems all around the country, and most of the money going to going to paperless e-voting systems. A study by Election Data Services indicates that 50 million voters, or about 28 percent of the voting population, used such electronic voting systems in 2004. This is about twice as many more than voted electronically in the previous election (Boyle). These numbers are important to understand the experience that this new way of voting has been used. Not even half of the voters have used the machine so before our country changes the system of voting they need to know how this small percentages voting is affected and how accurate and safe it truly is.
Many people, who support the newest electronic voting machines, are people who remember the year 2000 elections. In those elections there were many problems, tons of the paper ballots had not been punched through properly, and so could not be counted. The lack of a clear cut winner made it even more controversial throughout the country. According to the Voter Technology Project six million votes could not be counted because of the errors. Many elderly people reported having had trouble putting the holes in the proper space while voting. Another problem found while voting in that particular election was the