Electronic voting in Bexar may be put on ice

Web Posted: 12/09/2004 12:00 AM CST

Elizabeth Allen   San Antonio  Express-News Staff Writer

Proposed legislation that would require electronic voting systems to show a printed receipt might push Bexar County back to using its old optical scanner system, County Judge Nelson Wolff said Wednesday.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and state Rep. Aaron Pe?a, D-Edinburg, each filed a bill last month that would require electronic voting systems to produce a paper record that elections offices would then keep.

"We want to make sure that voters maintain their confidence in the elections," said Pe?a. "There's been a general outcry wherever electronic machines have been used."

But Wolff said the expense involved and questions raised by the receipt system might make it more cost-effective to return to the old system, in which voters darken circles on paper ballots next to the candidates' names. The ballots are then read by scanners.

"We would have to determine what is the most cost-effective way to run the election," Wolff said.

Bexar Elections Administrator Cliff Borofsky said the bills raise questions about which record ? electronic or paper ? would be the legal one.

The bills specify the paper copy is not the legal ballot. But when asked which would be examined in the event of a recount, Pe?a said, "I assume that would be determined by a court."

"My intention," he added, "is just to make it easier for people to vote and feel confident about their votes, and if there's a way to improve on this bill, we're open to suggestions."

Bexar County already has more than 2,200 electronic voting machines that election workers must take to polling sites, Borofsky said.

Depending on the kind of paper receipt system chosen, the number of machines hauled around on election day could double.

"There'd be more pieces, more space, more logistics and more training," Borofsky said.

Vendors also would be challenged by the short timetable provided, he said.

Both bills call for entities to adopt the paper readout system by Jan. 1, 2006, which Borofsky called "an aggressive schedule."

Also, he noted, "assuming we did, and everybody else did, then you'd have the governor's primary the first time through on the system."

The current system creates a paper audit trail, but that's a straight reflection of the electronic record and does not show an individual voter's readout.