ASQ Quality Report Offers Solutions to Error-Proof Voting Machines

'Change' Should Be Buzzword in Voting Process
MILWAUKEE--(Business Wire)--
While U.S. presidential candidates are busy touting the need for
policy change, there is little debate that America's voting process
itself needs serious change. But a few key quality procedures could
help restore voter confidence, says the latest Quality Report from the
American Society for Quality (ASQ), the world's leading authority on
quality improvement.

While the error-prone punch card machines that produced the
infamous hanging-chad fiasco in Florida in 2000 have been virtually
eliminated, other problems are still evident. Voting machine
malfunctions in this year's primaries in California, New Jersey and
South Carolina have already caused major havoc--machines failing to
start on time or locking up mid-stream and not counting votes;
paper-tape backups not matching vote totals from the machines; bad
planning which led to a shortage of voting machines; and operator
errors due to lack of proper training. So in this atmosphere of
distrust and error-ridden elections, what can be done to improve the
electronic voting processes?

"It's very important for citizens to have as much trust in their
voting systems as they have in their medical care systems or air
travel," says ASQ quality expert Liz Keim, a past president of ASQ.
"So why not leverage some of the same basic tools that bring
reliability to critical functions like medical care and air transport
to solve quality problems that continue to plague our elections?" she
asks.

Basic quality approaches that Keim refers to include:

-- Establishing standardized procedures such as voting machine
start-up protocols, voter instruction procedures, and steps
for secure handling of ballots and equipment;

-- Implementing simple checklists based on those standardized
procedures; and

-- Adequate testing of proposed solutions.

The Human Factor

On voting's frontlines--in more than 100,000 polling places
nationwide--the mostly volunteer polling work is stretched very thin.
To make matters worse, these workers often receive inadequate
training.

"The people running our polling places are frequently the
overlooked link in the system," states Keim. "You don't send out a
waiter to serve dinners without adequate training, and you don't send
a hospital lab tech to draw blood if they've never done it before, so
why do we seem so unconcerned about having the right people with the
right training run something as important as our elections?" Keim
advocates strict adherence to polling-place regimens that include:

-- Personnel training that focuses on critical points in the
system where problems are likely to occur;

-- Standardized and documented procedures; and

-- Implementation of checklists similar to the "pre-flight"
checklists used by pilots.

Audits Complement Paper Voting Trails

Advocacy groups have placed great emphasis on creating
voter-verifiable paper trails to preclude fraud and increase citizen
confidence that votes are being recorded correctly. But paper trails
alone aren't enough. Keim says that audits, a common quality assurance
practice, could aid the election process in two ways:

-- Post-election audits of election results would detect
anomalies that indicate either fraud or systemic errors in the
voting equipment. In this type of audit, paper records from
randomly selected machines and precincts are compared to the
voting system's electronic records. Currently, only 17 out of
the 30 states that mandate a paper voting record for
electronic systems also mandate audits.

-- Audits against an established standard. The Election
Assistance Commission is now working to establish such a
standard of 'best practice' for use by local and state
governments. This audit of election systems (processes,
procedures and equipment) would take place in the months prior
to an election and provide a much better understanding of
voting systems.

Students Engineer New Voting System

Is it possible that the 'millennium generation' might have an
answer? Taz Daughtrey, a computer science instructor at James Madison
University in Harrisonburg, Va., and editor of ASQ's journal, Software
Quality Professional, believes students in his undergraduate software
engineering class can design a better, more reliable electronic voting
system.

"We can bring quality tools and software engineering principles to
bear to give voters much more confidence in voting," says Daughtrey.

Teams of students are working from the ground up, analyzing all
aspects of the elections system, including legal requirements, and
dissecting the engineering aspects of voting systems. They are
designing computer/voter interfaces, validation and testing routines,
and security provisions that ensure that votes are captured and
recorded accurately and confidentially. To test their designs, they
use data from student elections on the campus. Results will be
available by end of April.

Daughtrey believes the students' work can shed light on ways to
take advantage of the best new technology to improve voting and
enhance voter confidence. He believes electronic systems hold great
promise for elections. But, he acknowledges that the complexity of
electronic voting is a two-edged sword because it has great potential
for error-proofing, but that same complexity can introduce reliability
concerns.

"Taking as much mystery as possible out of the voting
process--through audits, better trained personnel and systems that are
more efficient and clear voter instructions--is really the best way to
achieve greater transparency and help to restore the public's
confidence," says Daughtrey.

The American Society for Quality, www.asq.org, has been the
world's leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more
than 93,000 individual and organizational members, the professional
association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge
exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces
and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ
offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality
professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers,
encouraging all to Make Good Great(R). ASQ has been the sole
administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award since 1991. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding
partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a
prominent quarterly economic indicator, and also produces the
Quarterly Quality Report.

American Society for Quality
Christel Henke, 414-332-2933
chenke@hansondodge.com
or
Lynda Nicely, 800-248-1946
lnicely@asq.org

Copyright Business Wire 2008