What has been proven, however, is that vote tabulating programs do contain errors. In 1984, Illinois began a systematic and exhaustive test of the vote counting systems used in the state. According to Michael Harty, the person in charge of the testing, nobody seemed to care. Almost a decade later, little attention is still being paid to the computer programs that determine winners and losers in all local, state and federal elections. The community of election officials is largely unorganized.
Technical expertise is spread unevenly.
Counties with thousands of precincts like Los Angeles or Miami tend to have sophisticated resources and a lot of technical help that smaller jurisdictions lack. One thing that all election officials are concerned about is money. State budgets for election departments have never been generous, and in today's economy it is even more difficult to obtain funding for election administration. This means that election officials are constantly having to run operations with inadequate financial support. Election personnel is low on the learning curve when it comes to basic security standards and procedures.