OTTUMWA — Dr. Douglas Jones seems, at first glance, an unlikely expert for the subject of voting.

Jones is an associate professor in the University of Iowa’s computer sciences department. It’s not the department you usually find people to speak on elections. But the rapid changes in technology over the course of the past several years put people like Jones squarely in the debate. That trend will likely continue as more locations shift to electronic voting machines.

Officials hailed the machines as a solution to the hanging chad questions and questions surrounding the Florida vote of 2000. But the machines themselves raised questions. Many do not supply a paper trail. The electronic record is the only one available in a recount. The machines’ security is also questioned.

The doubts are unsettling. Can a hacker really sway an election? Could a computer virus wipe out an election? The stakes are extraordinarily high.

“If people don’t trust the elections they start thinking about revolutions and things like that,” Jones said.

The newest voting machines are touch-screens. Jones said they have the same challenges as touch-screens people know better. He pulled out a Palm organizer to illustrate the point.

“This thing drifts out of calibration about once a week,” he said.

Technology is evolving and improving Jones said. The basic problems come from just a few sources. One is the tension between a secret ballot and a transparent process.

“Transparency and secret ballots are literally in conflict. The only way to have complete transparency is if everybody publishes their ballot,” he said.

Electronic voting tends to push the balance toward secret ballots. People can easily check and understand paper ballots. Electronics place that ability beyond most people. Only computer experts have the ability to really understand what’s happening.

That’s not to say paper ballots are perfect.

“The Florida butterfly ballot was an example of what you can do with any voting technology. You can mismanage it,” Jones said. “Far more frequent than fraud in elections are mistakes.”

Wapello County Auditor Phyllis Dean agreed with that assessment. She said she has confidence in both the machines and the people running them. But errors are always possible, even with people doing the best they can.

Poll workers are one of the links experts worry about. They’re not professionals and don’t work often. Dean said Iowa tries hard to make sure the workers are ready.

“We try to train poll workers so they can instruct voters on how to fill out their ballot. Not who to vote for but how to vote,” she said.