Technology key piece of election
Secretary of State discusses changes while visiting Richmond

By Rebecca Helmes
Palladium-Item   22 September 2004

 Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Indiana's top election official, has dealt with election issues since he took office in 2002. He came to Richmond on Monday and spoke with the Palladium-Item about changes in election systems.

Rokita said that in 2000, more than half of Indiana voters used punch cards to cast their ballots. This year 12 percent or less of Indiana's voting population will use punch cards, he said. About 69 percent of the money received from the federal Help America Vote Act is going toward helping counties election equipment.

Wayne County, part of the majority not using punch cards, does not have the equipment to pull off a punch card election anymore. Wayne County Clerk Sue Anne Lower meets today with the Indiana Election Commission to find out whether touchscreen voting machines furnished here by Election Systems and Software have been certified by the state for general election use. In May, the county voted on machines that utilized uncertified programming inside the computers.

ES&S supplied Wayne, Henry, Johnson and Vanderburgh counties with touchscreen voting software that has not officially been approved to use in the general election. Deadline for certification is Oct. 1.

If the machines are not certified, ES&S will have to pay to bring in enough M100 Precinct Tabulators, the optical scan machines Wayne County used to count absentee ballots in past elections.

"I need it etched in stone right now," Lower said. "I want to know. I'm tired of waiting."

Rokita said he can't promise a perfect election, but he does promise a fair and accurate one.

"The process (of voting) is so much more than the machines," Rokita said. The integrity of the system depends on the integrity of the people working the polls. "All that is just as important."

To this end, Rokita's office made videos for counties to help train poll workers. Lower said she put Wayne County on the list to receive the videos.