Because technology is behind how we will vote in the future. And how much more personal can you get than that?

Touch-screen voting machines, which are a lot like those automatic checkout machines at some grocery and home-improvement stores, have been at the center of a controversial Ohio General Assembly vote recently. These machines aren't being used in Southwest Ohio but are in place throughout Northern Kentucky.

Voters line up to check in before using the electronic voting booths in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP photo)

Just like our political system, there are pretty much two sides to the debate over how to use the machines and even which machines to use.

On the one side are companies such as North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which is one of the largest manufacturers of such machines and has been a lightning rod for controversy ever since entering the market about two years ago.

A local tech expert has a different point of view.

Troy Davis, technology director for Metaphor Studio in Over-the-Rhine, says companies such as Diebold should use what is called "open source" programming.

In essence, this is like a communal pot, where computer programmers all over the world get to weigh in and tweak programs.

Davis is part of a national group of programming experts called the Open Voting Consortium. The group says "open source" programming actually is more secure and stable - because experts review it constantly and make the operating code lean and effective.

"The problem you get when private companies such as Diebold write the code is that they obfuscate it, or what we call spaghetti-fy it," Davis says. "They do it to make it unreadable, but it makes it less secure. The belief is that it's security through obfuscation, but instead, it turns into a situation where one person could give away the secret."

Davis also points to comments made by Diebold chief executive officer Walden O'Dell, who was quoted as saying he was committed to delivering Ohio, a key swing state, to President Bush.

"Wouldn't it be better to have a system that has independent review of experts from throughout the programming industry instead of being at the mercy of a company whose intentions we just don't know?" he says.

Finally, Davis argues that machines supplied by companies such as Diebold should print out paper results after every vote. Those pieces of paper, which do not identify the voter in any way, are then dropped in a ballot box on the way out as a backup. Each "receipt" then has a bar code as well as the actual vote on it, to allow for two different types of verification.

"The paper trail is necessary if you want an election to be verifiable and believable," Davis says.

In Kentucky, Secretary of State Trey Greyson said in July that a paper-trail system would not be used in Kentucky. And this summer, the Ohio General Assembly called for a more clear paper audit trail, which slowed down the process of installing machines throughout the state. They are used in Franklin County but not many other places.

Diebold's view

Diebold Election Systems spokesman David Bear makes some strong points for both open sourcing and for a lack of need for a paper trail.

Bear says the process already requires local election officials and security experts to review code and procedures.

Bear also points out that the only connection to a machine is the power cord - meaning there is no way to "hack" into the e-ballot box.

"These systems are not only reviewed at a national level but at the state and local level, too, by people who are familiar with the real-world circumstances in which they will be used," he says.

Bear says such machines have an accuracy rate of more than 99 percent as opposed to punch card ballots, which had an error rate of more than 6 percent in the recent California recall election.

Bear also said O'Dell has since apologized for his partisan comments and has said he was "naÔve" about the situation.

"He did not mean that he would use his company but just was personally committed," Bear says. "Since then, all company officials have been barred from any political activity other than voting."

As for the paper trail, Bear argues that each machine already prints out a list of individual votes as well as running tallies for each candidate or issue.

"We would be introducing a step into the system that never existed before," Bear says. "We don't get receipts when we use regular voting machines or punch ballots."

Diebold has a lot at stake in this issue. As one of the market leaders in electronic voting, the company has provided more than 45,000 touch-screen machines nationally for locations such as the state of Georgia and Alameda County in California. It has none in use in Ohio.

Machine costs

Each machine costs about $3,400.

In the third quarter of this year, Diebold turned a profit of $48.3 million. But the election division is only a small part of the company, accounting for $34 million in revenues or about 5.6 percent of the company's total.

It's just too bad that this debate can't be settled like other political disputes: at the polling place.

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E-mail jpilcher@enquirer.com