March 10, 2005
Report & Analysis · Data · Other Poll Releases
A majority of Georgians is satisfied that the touchscreen system for casting and counting votes in the state of Georgia is accurate and convenient, according to a recent Peach State Poll. Fifty-nine percent of Georgians believe the touchscreen machines have made voting in Georgia more accurate, compared with only 6 percent who say the new machines make voting less accurate. Of Georgians who say that they voted, nearly 90 percent are very confident (64 percent) or somewhat confident (25 percent) that their vote was accurately counted.
The poll was conducted before the state legislature began debating adding a paper record to the present electronic voting system. The Peach State Poll is a quarterly survey of public opinion conducted by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
Several ideas to make voting even more convenient garnered majority support in the poll, such as extending the hours of advanced voting (88 percent), adding weekend days to advanced voting (77 percent), including a paper record in the fully electronic system (66 percent), and establishing a state holiday on election day (59 percent).
Other Peach State Poll results:
* The most commonly cited advantage of the fully electronic elections system is that it is convenient and easy to use (57 percent). Respondents also cited greater accuracy than past systems (15 percent) and faster tabulation of results (8 percent) as the system’s major advantages.
* In response to an open-ended question, 29 percent of the public said that the new, fully electronic system had no disadvantages. Those who recognize some disadvantages of the system cited the potential for fraud (12 percent), dependence on flawless programming and stable electric supply (11 percent), the fact that some people are not comfortable with advanced technology (11 percent), and the lack of a paper trail for auditing purposes (9 percent).
* Georgians who took advantage of advanced voting were more likely to wait in line than were those who voted on election day, but for those who had to wait in line there was no difference in the reported length of the wait. Nonwhites, however, reported a longer wait than did whites.
* Although confidence levels are generally high, they are much higher for whites than for nonwhites. Seventy-six percent of whites are very confident that their votes were accurately counted, compared with only 39 percent of nonwhites.
These data were taken from a Peach State Poll survey conducted between January 31 and February 10, 2005. The poll included 800 telephone interviews of randomly selected adults in Georgia. For a sample of this size, the margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level is +/-3.5 percent.
