Del. voters will leave a paper trail
Election officials have confidence in accuracy of electronic machines

By AHMED NAMATALLA
Staff reporter
08/13/2004

Touting the reliability of the state's electronic voting machines, officials from the New Castle County Department of Elections held a demonstration Thursday to promote better understanding of how the machines work.

"People are reading a lot of negative press about electronic voting, and we want them to be confident in our machines," said Elaine Manlove, the department's director. "We want them to understand that this is a direct voting electronic system, not touch-screen."

Some touch-screen systems, including ones that have been used in Ohio, California and Maryland, have been criticized in studies as vulnerable to tampering. The security concerns focus on machines made by Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.

The machines used statewide in Delaware are manufactured by Danaher and have proved reliable in several close elections since their implementation in 1998, officials said.

Unlike touch-screen systems, Danaher machines keep paper records of all cast votes. In each machine, a record is kept on a hardware drive, cartridge and three paper receipts.

After polls close, cartridges and paper receipts are taken out of the machines and transported to state offices.

Cartridges are then read and votes are transmitted to the election commissioner's office using the state's mainframe computers.

Howard G. Sholl, deputy administrative director for the Department of Elections, said the agency audited about 25 percent of the state's 305 polling stations after the most recent presidential primaries. Nine discrepancies were found, but they had nothing to do with the machines, Sholl said.

"We're confident that this machine counts votes accurately," he said.

One station had four discrepancies. Five other stations each had a single discrepancy. The discrepancies meant a person went in to vote but for some reason did not, and the fact was not noted by an election worker at the station.

Election workers keep cards signed by all who come to vote. If a person walks out without voting, they make sure that person did so intentionally, and note the fact by marking that person's signature card, Sholl said.

The state owns about 950 machines costing $5,500 each, Manlove said. Representatives of Danaher, the manufacturer, last performed software s in 2001. By 2006, another will provide headphones for sight-impaired voters to be able to hear their choices and respond verbally.