Iowa's ready for election; one county keeping old voting machines.

By AMY LORENTZEN, Associated Press Writer  19 August 2004

DES MOINES Although one county has opted to keep its old-fashioned lever voting equipment, Iowa officials say the state is in good shape for the November general election.

Most of Iowa's 99 counties use high-tech voting equipment, such as a touch-screen system that operates like a bank's ATM or, like Black Hawk County, optical scan technology that combines paper ballots with electronic tallying, said Iowa secretary of state spokesman Chris Ludlow.

"For this election, 2004, absolutely we're ready," he said Thursday.

Ludlow said he did not know how many of the counties are compliant with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which aims to make sure that each county in the United States replaces both lever and punch-card voting systems by January 2006. It has specific requirements that optical and touch-screen systems will have to meet.

The legislation comes after the Florida election debacle of 2000 that left many ballots uncounted because of glitches with voting systems.

Ludlow said the $30 million that HAVA has funneled into Iowa has been helpful for at least six counties Delaware, Crawford, Ida, Keokuk, Palo Alto and Van Buren to make the switch to optical scan equipment.

All but Van Buren, which has hand-counted paper ballots since its first elections in the 1840s, had been using lever machines.

"If everything works the way it is supposed to ... it will speed up election night," Van Buren County Auditor Jon Finney said of his new equipment, set to arrive in late September.

The last holdout on lever machines this election cycle is Sioux County in western Iowa.

The county is keeping its machines, purchased in 1974, because there isn't enough time to train staff on new equipment after holding two special elections over the past couple of months, said County Auditor Dennis Lange.

"Our staff isn't big enough to do something like that," he said.

Lange said the lever equipment has been reliable and that he's sad to see them have to go.

"They've had some wear and tear on them, but it's not the rubber-band thing everybody's talking about," he said. "They've been good workhorses."

Even without the upgrades, Ludlow said Iowa counties have always been diligent about the accuracy and fairness of their elections.

"We are proud of our tradition of accurate, well-received elections," he said, noting that in 2000 the presidential race in Iowa was decided by just over 4,000 votes.

"There was not a call for a lawsuit, not a call for a recount, and in my mind that kind of says something about the tradition that we bring to elections," he said.

Other requirements under HAVA include creating a single computerized statewide database of registered voters, ensuring that voters with physical disabilities can vote and that individuals who don't speak English can use the equipment at the polls.

The federal government is providing $3.9 billion nationwide to upgrade the voting systems.