Early Returns
Of the voting systems certified for use in California, touch screen voting systems were used in four counties and accounted for one of every 10 votes cast in the state. Optical scanning equipment was employed in 34 counties, Datavote (a paper ballot that is not pre-scored) in 12 and punch cards in seven counties. Problems with punch cards as reported in Florida, are now infamous and were the foundation of an ACLU lawsuit that spurred changes in voting laws. Datavote systems were not decertified.
The current controversy, however, surrounds the integrity of electronic voting systems. Among the issues that concern poll watchers, governments and guardians of the Constitution, are security, accuracy, accountability, transparency and the creation of a verifiable paper trail for each vote cast.
In California, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley appointed a task force that examined these and other issues surrounding direct recording electronic voting systems (DREs). Chief among the groups' concerns was the ability to audit elections using paper copies of ballots or some other representation of individual votes cast. In California, where Schwarzenegger led closest rival Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante by approximately 850,000 votes, the election was anything but close. Consequently, there were no calls for a recount. And, in largely rural Shasta County where Sequoia Voting Systems touch-screen units were used for the first time, a paper trail didn't seem essential to voters, according to Ann Reed, County Clerk and Registrar.
"There were some people who called and asked if there would be a copy of their ballot," she said. "I was very patient about telling anyone who asked that I felt very confident about the machines." Reed said the one-percent hand count she did verified to her satisfaction that the touch screen units were performing as promised. She was also pleased with how the public responded to new technology. "In every polling place we had a demo unit," she explained. "But less than 5 percent of people asked for a demo. They went right into the booth. Very few people needed help. It was great." Reed said she had hoped to do more public outreach prior to election -- her biggest effort happened at the county fair last summer where demonstration units were available.
"I was a little concerned about getting the election officers trained. They didn't know how to turn it on and neither did we," she said, referring to the new electronic machines. To make this challenge more manageable, Reed consolidated polling places to minimize the number of workers that needed training. Shasta County recorded a 63 percent voter turnout and few complaints about either the process or the new technology. "The voters absolutely loved it. It was simple, easy to use," Reed concluded.
Follow the Paper
Kim Alexander,
of the California Voter Foundation, said that enthusiasm for electronic voting should be tempered with caution. "I know the registrars think it's great and I don't disagree that it can be a great interface," she said. "But I think it is very important that all votes are verifiable. The point of a verified paper trail isn't to show that the machines aren't working but that they are working. For the public to have confidence in the results, the results need to be verifiable."
Alexander said that sample hand-counts of anonymous ballots cast electronically don't prove the integrity of the system. "It doesn't confirm the accurate representation of the ballot," she said. "It has to be produced when the voter is there. Only he or she knows how they intended to vote." Alexander said that ballots checked after an election by officials could have been stored improperly on a server or been subjected to an electronic glitch that could go undetected. She favors a paper ballot that can be delivered directly to the voter over the suggestion that voting system companies will develop an electronic verification.
"I am open minded about it but I am skeptical," she said. "As long as we are relying on technology and software to verify our election we are ultimately relying on only a handful of people to verify elections. It's not transparent to everyone."
The state's electronic voting task force echoed Alexander (a member of the appointed group) in its recommendations and also pointed out the complexities of providing paper verification of individual ballots. "Printers add an increased technical burden at the polls since printers are often problematic, requiring on-the-spot troubleshooting," the report stated. In addition, the Help America Vote Act requires that voting systems be accessible to people with disabilities. A paper copy of a ballot would not be accessible to a visually impaired voter without the assistance of a sighted person -- infringing on the voter's right to privacy.
Nonetheless, some voting technology companies are attempting to provide some manner of paper verification, according to Miles Weigold, vice president and regional manager for Sequoia Voting Systems. "To respond to that concern we have an optional device that amounts to a printed reproduction," he said. An individual casts his or her votes and a paper reproduction of the ballot appears behind a Plexiglas screen, Weigold explained. The voter verifies the accuracy of the printed ballot which is then recorded, cut off and dropped into a ballot box. Just as with the paper-based system, the voter leaves the polls with a receipt, not a copy of the ballot cast.
Security Concerns
Although the paper trail is currently the most debated issue, electronic voting opens a panoply of possible problems -- from hackers to voter fraud and corrupted software designers. Alexander said she is also concerned about undue political influence that might come from campaign contributions from voting system companies to public officials.
The rising anxiety over DREs frustrates some public officials who acknowledge the inaccuracies of punch-card systems and want to move forward. But, as the debate over electronic systems heats up, one official asked, "What would be public like us to use?"
Whatever happens, the nation won't be returning to the old days of hanging chads. The ACLU has been assiduously monitoring the use of punch-card systems in elections throughout the United States. California's recall produced even more evidence of uncounted votes, according to ACLU spokesman Tenoch Florez, who said an estimated 176,000 votes went uncounted. "That's a lot but not enough to make a difference," he said. "The election was won by a big margin and it thankfully didn't become a factor." The uncounted votes were 8 percent of total ballots cast, Florez added. The undercount in Florida, 2000, was 2.9 percent. "To me, it's amazing that there is even a debate as to the use of punch cards. Anyone who watched Florida in 2000 would come down on that side," he said. "Still, a lot of states are dragging their feet on this."
But, some are leading the way. Georgia's Sec. of State Cathy Cox convinced the state Legislature to back a $54 million bond campaign to implement statewide touch-screen voting. In 2000, officials estimated that 3.5 percent of the state's punch card ballots were flawed or uncounted. In 2002, with Diebold's electronic systems in place, the error rate fell to an all-time low of .08 percent. And the implementation in the state's 159 counties was completed in just six months, according to a company spokesman.
Diebold suffered a setback last summer when researchers from Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities reported security weaknesses in the software code that could possibly enable tampering. Maryland, intending to install the company's system across the state, took the brunt of the bad publicity and subsequently had an independent analysis of the machine and its source code performed by Science Application International Corp. (SAIC). On Sept. 23, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., reviewed the analysis and authorized the State Board of Elections to proceed with the statewide installation of the Diebold AccuVote-TS electronic voting machine, saying Maryland voters would have "one of the safest election environments in the nation." In response to the review, however, Diebold incorporated some new security features.
According to Mark Radke, director of voting industry for Diebold, touch-screen systems have been successfully field tested in scores of elections throughout the United States. In California's recall, Los Angeles used Diebold's technology for early voting. "Each one of the terminals was in seven languages," he said, "which I believe is the largest number of languages ever used in any county." This feature, along with unprecedented accessibility for disabled voters, is another argument in favor of electronic systems. There is no worry about running out of paper ballots in a particular language and voters with disabilities are able to cast their ballots in private.
Rave Review
Riverside County in Southern Calif., where about 60 percent of 659,000 registered voters showed up at the polls, was the state's largest deployment of touch-screen technology. Under the leadership of Registrar Mischelle Townsend, the county has conducted 20 elections using Sequoia's voting system. Townsend is a genuine fan of electronic voting, saying it is easy for the public to use and has increased voter participation. In the 1996 presidential election, Riverside's voter turnout was 62 percent. In 2000, when touch-screen voting was introduced, it rose to 72 percent. "I believe people were excited about the new technology," she said, "and wanted to be part of introducing it." Townsend added that the interest has not diminished. Surveys done during early voting in the recall election showed that voters retained their high approval of the voting system.
She also feels that the internal tracking of ballots within the technology is adequate and that there is no need for a paper reproduction of individual ballots. "We do not believe that is necessary," she said. "We have done five manual audits of recounts in local elections -- mayoral and city council. We take the print out and compare it to the machine count. Each one was well received by the candidates." Townsend points out that electronic voting actually prevents errors common on paper ballots, such as over-voting or under-voting. "The minute you touch the screen your vote is recorded," she said. "A paper ballot passes through many hands. It can be damaged and then you can't tell the voter's intent. Electronic voting, in many ways, is a much more reliable, accurate and secure system on many levels."
A spokesperson from Sec. Shelley's office, said there were no reported problems with electronic voting technology. The challenges in the recall election involved human factors -- such as lines or ill informed poll workers. At least one Los Angeles precinct reported running out of paper ballots. According to the spokesperson, the secretary's task force is still developing final guidelines for e-voting and existing technologies are being subjected to scrutiny and modified to address concerns.
At a public meeting of the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel just days after the recall election, modifications to both the Diebold and Sequoia systems were considered. Rather than repairs to current technology, the changes proposed were upgrades to hardware, firmware or software to make systems more efficient or user-friendly. However, a number of questions from audience members to the panel concerned what operating systems were being used by election officials throughout the state.
CVF's Alexander said the controversy mostly involves security of Microsoft's systems and the fact that the company's source codes are proprietary. Consequently, even though versions of Windows often appear somewhere in the chain of vote tabulation, the system is not part of the certification process. The panel declined to address these questions, saying they were outside the scope of the agenda.
Six more California counties are planning to implement DRE's for the 2004 presidential primary election in March including San Diego, San Bernardino and Santa Clara counties. Because the new list contains counties with large populations the percentage of voters in the state using DRE's will increase from about 10 percent to 32 percent, according to the California Voter Foundation.
