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From Chads to Chips

Although technology offers solutions to the turmoil in Florida during last years presidential election, it might not be the final answer.

Somewhere in America, there are voters who still vote using the old paper ballot and box method, which was first introduced when James Buchanan was running for president in 1856. According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), about 2 percent of registered voters record their choices by marking the box next to the candidate of their choice and dropping the ballot into a sealed box.

Voting in this quaint way would seem funny if it werent for the fact that the rest of our voting system is also riddled with antiquated equipment. Hand counting paper ballots almost seems efficient compared to the hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads that created havoc during last years presidential election. According to some estimates, several hundred thousand ballots are thrown out in every election and another 2 million are disqualified because they are marked for more than one candidate or for none, mainly because of voter confusion.

As problematic as punch cards are, they represent the favorite method of voting in the country and are used by more than 37 percent of registered voters, despite the fact that, in 1988, the National Bureau of Standards recommended discontinuing their use. Mechanical lever machines, first used in the 19th century and now no longer manufactured, are still used by 20 percent of registered voters. The rest of our ballots are counted with various electronic and optical scanning systems.

The reason for such diverse voting methods lies in the fact that, for the most part, it is up to individual city and county governments to decide what system to use. Although its unlikely that well end up with one uniform voting system, attempts have been made to set some standards. In 1984 Congress asked the FEC to set up voluntary standards for voting equipment. Today, about half the states adhere to these standards, which havent been updated since 1990. And only a handful of states -- Illinois, New York, Alaska and Delaware -- have mandated standardized voting systems.

More importantly, in the wake of the presidential election, a number of states have taken steps to replace the outdated voting systems with state-of-the-art technology. In Connecticut, lawmakers have introduced legislation to spend $11.3 million to replace all 3,225 voting machines in the state with a uniform electronic system. In New Jersey, a legislator has proposed allocating $5 million in matching funds for counties to upgrade their systems. And in California, Secretary of State Bill Jones has called for reforming the states voting system by spending up to $230 million on new hardware and software.

Voting for Technology

Many lawmakers and government officials would like to adopt the kind of voting technology that was used in about 8 percent of the country, including three counties in Colorado and Texas. There, during last falls presidential election, voters had a chance to try out a new device called eSlate, a direct record electronic (DRE) voting system. Built by Hart InterCivic, an Austin, Texas-based provider of election systems, eSlate allows voters to record their choices by pushing buttons, not chads.

Actually, voters turn a small wheel on eSlate, which looks like an oversized wireless device, according to Bill Stotesbery, vice president for Hart. "The wheel moves a highlight bar across the name of the candidate. Once youve made your choice, you press the enter button," he said.

ESlate allows voters to change the selection and review their ballots before they finally cast their votes. The machines are wired to a central controller, which keeps a tally of the recorded votes.

Push-button DREs, such as eSlate, are easier to use than other kinds of DREs, according to Stotesbery. "Touch-screen voting systems have problems with the precision of the touch," he explained. "Its known as drift, where you dont get the exact placement of the vote."

Touch screens are also vulnerable to deterioration from heavy use, he added.

According to voters surveyed after using eSlate in Arapahoe and Summit counties in Colorado and Tarrant County, Texas, 91 percent found the device easy to use. The electronic voting machine, which costs about $2,500 per unit, can also be used by people with disabilities. For an extra $1,000, blind voters can listen to the ballot choices from a voice synthesizer, rather than have to tell another person how they want to vote.

Paper Preferred

Not everyone feels comfortable with electronic voting systems, no matter how easy they may be to use. For some, paper will always be preferable. For that reason, nearly 25 percent of all registered voters use a pencil or pen to fill in rectangles, ovals or circles next to the candidate of their choice. The paper ballot is fed into a computer scanner, which senses and records the mark, hence the name "mark sense" technology.

Although this technology has been around for some time, the software that reads the ballots has improved considerably in the past five years, according to K. Bradley Paxton, director of the Rochester Institute of Technology Research Corp. "Mark sense technology is very dated," he said. "It looks for a mark, but not the correct answer. Thats where modernization can be helpful."

Paxton pointed out that the latest software can tell the difference between a ballot choice that has been marked then crossed out and the second choice, which is correct. At least 5 percent of voters will make a mistake with a mark sense ballot. But todays technology can raise the accuracy so that 99.5 percent of all ballots are accurately counted by a computer. "Todays intelligent character recognition software is phenomenally accurate," said Paxton.

And the technology is fast. New Zealand used optical scanning technology from Kodak and Trilogy Computer Systems to read millions of ballots sent in by mail. Within 30 minutes of closing the voting period, the government had its results. Just as importantly, New Zealands election costs using scanning technology were 74 percent lower compared to previous elections.

But optical scanners, robust enough to handle the demands of Election Day voting, arent cheap. Unless Congress or the states are willing to fork over large sums, few cities and counties have the resources to overhaul their voting systems with these new but expensive forms of technology.

Some say the solution is to vote online. Nearly 40 percent of Americans have a computer hooked up to the Internet. And every local government has PCs that could be quickly set up at polling stations around town to let people vote. Internet voting has been taking place for a while, mainly for elections involving corporate boards of directors, union officials and university students. Last March, Arizona allowed voters to cast ballots online in the Democratic Party primary. And during the presidential election, voters in Sacramento, San Diego and Phoenix were able to try their hands at online voting in a pilot test of the technology. They cast nonbinding ballots in a shadow election. It was the first time election officials evaluated online voting in a public election. An independent poll of Arizona voters who tested online voting shows that 100 percent found the online system easy or very easy to use and eight out of 10 would prefer to vote online.

Of course, when many people think of online voting, they picture themselves voting from their computers at home, not trudging down to a polling station. After all, if they can purchase clothes and pay bills online, why not vote from a computer at home or at work? Jim Adler, president and CEO of VoteHere.net, the Bellevue, Wash., company that conducted the online tests in Arizona and California, said there are too many unresolved security issues when it comes to remote voting. "You have to remember that the home PC is optimized for functionality, not security," he said.

Instead, local governments should view online voting as another option for the polling station. Computers with the right software can send encrypted votes over the Internet, explained Adler. The benefit of online voting to local governments is the relatively low cost and the flexibility it could provide. Adler pointed out that it wouldnt be hard to set up polling stations near shopping centers, libraries or other nontraditional locations. But he doesnt see voting from the home taking place anytime soon. "Everyones assumption is that online voting has to come from the home, but we have been trumpeting the polling approach."

Management Still Matters

Until the complex security issues have been dealt with, few election experts are willing to say when online voting may take place in the country. One shift that could speed development is the fact that large IT companies are getting involved. In January, Compaq and Cisco announced they were investing venture capital funds in VoteHere.net. IBM is also investigating the e-voting market. Some believe the entry of major players is key to ensuring e-voting technology can scale sufficiently to handle widespread application. But to government officials who actually manage elections, the issue of which technology to use pales in comparison to how best to manage todays elections.

"You can have the best voting system in the world to count ballots, but if voter registration isnt maintained, if poll workers arent trained well, if not enough space is set aside for voters to cast ballots, then it doesnt make any difference at all," said Gary McIntosh, state elections director of Washington and president of the National Association of State Election Directors.

Most election offices are understaffed, underfunded and undertrained, according to McIntosh. Theres not much technology can do to fix a problem that stems from a lack of support and professionalism. Reports from Florida about voters in many poor counties being turned away from the polling booths seem to support McIntoshs contention. "Everybody has to be trained, tested and certified," he explained. "That requires a commitment of resources to the counties."

What worries McIntosh and others is that any additional funds for running elections will be used to pay for new technology, some of which is designed for commercial transactions, not counting ballots. "Unless you have quality people managing such a system and know how to operate it, the technology wont help."

If theres a silver lining to the presidential election, its that people now understand just how complex it can be to run an election. "For a one-day event," he said, "an election is an immense project."
With more than 20 years of experience covering state and local government, Tod previously was the editor of Public CIO, e.Republic’s award-winning publication for information technology executives in the public sector. He is now a senior editor for Government Technology and a columnist at Governing magazine.