The paper-or-plastic dilemma has moved out of the supermarket and into America’s boards of elections, where officials are grappling with that very question in the wake of yet another messy presidential race. Paper ballots seemed headed for extinction after Americans spent Thanksgiving 2000 glued to their televisions, watching Broward County canvassing board Judge Robert Rosenberg peer through his giant magnifying glass at dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads during the Florida recount. But election officials who flocked toward electronic machines in the wake of the recount are now having a rethink, as fears of hacking set in. Those fears were further stoked this week when a group of voting and computer experts urged recounts in three swing states, saying tampering could have swung the Nov. 8 election to Donald Trump. “The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” J. Alex Halderman, the computer expert who has lobbied the Clinton campaign to demand recounts, said in an internet post Wednesday.
He and his colleagues said they found Hillary Clinton did better in Wisconsin in counties that used paper ballots versus those that used digital machines. The difference could be enough to swing the outcome in the state, the team said.
Election statisticians were quick to push back, saying that the differences were explained by factors other than voting machine.
… Mr. Halderman, in his follow-up post, said another indicator of problems is the discrepancy between pre-election polling and the final results in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Norden, the Brennan Center expert, said the evidence that’s been disclosed publicly so far doesn’t suggest there was a hack. But he said if there was evidence, the country may have had another fiasco on its hands. “It’s only 16 years, and it wouldn’t have taken much for us to be back at the Florida 2000 situation again, as nightmarish as that sounds,” he said.
Full Article: Electronic voting under scrutiny as computer experts lobby for recounts in swing states – Washington Times.