Election Technology and Election Fraud

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how governments take divergent paths in managing technologies and innovations that have risk associated with them. We shall see that federalism is a key factor here in pushing policy divergence, in contrast to some of the other policy areas examined in the book. In the United States, the implementation of new voting technologies and election reforms that followed the 2000 election were implemented largely in a haphazard process. States and localities often adopted new voting equipment and new election reforms without carefully testing or evaluating the implementation of these reforms. This approach contrasts with the model of reform in Europe regarding the implementation of new voting technologies and the evaluation of election reforms generally. In Europe, greater consideration is given to regulating risk through pilot testing and third-party evaluations of elections.