Fork simple

Low-tech voting systems may be best, after all

Opinion   Boulder Daily Camera  January 6, 2005

Ah, the humble fork: Here is an instrument so simple and effective that its essential design has not been altered, or needed alteration, since it first appeared in the Middle East around 1000 A.D. It's a triumph of the most basic engineering.

One can imagine technological innovations in fork design: clamps for slippery pasta, perhaps a microchip to warn of too-hot food. But such bells and whistles would be costly, and wouldn't really improve the fork's essential performance.

But often, in our technophilic society, we're led to believe that each and every "improvement" ? read: complication ? of even the simplest system or instrument is for the best.

Take voting. These days, to exercise this most basic American right, most of us have no choice but to accept the most "technologically advanced" systems: Direct-record electronic systems, aka touch-screens; optical-scanning machines; and even those much-reviled punch-card systems with their dangling chads.

But given the disaster of the 2000 election in Florida, concerns about the accountability of electronic systems and Boulder County's two disastrous experiences with a new optical-scan system, have all these wonderful fixes really improved anything?

Now some of the same people who worked to ensure that Boulder County didn't buy a high-tech, unverifiable electronic voting system ? and who also warned against buying the Hart InterCivic system that led to a six-day delay in tallying the November election ? are touting a simple, legal, hand-counted and inexpensive paper-ballot system. This week, they have been squiring around Beat Fehr, CEO of Swiss Voting System, in hopes that the city of Boulder will use this low-tech, reliable voting method for the March 8 election to replace outgoing City Council member Will Toor.

The system uses currency-sized, color-coded paper ballots marked with a distinctive "notch." Mailed to voters, they can be returned via mail or to polling places, then tallied using common currency counting machines.

Any number of variations can be used. For example, five candidates for a given office might each appear on separate ballots. Voters would return only the ballot for their candidate (voter identity is separate from the ballots). Counters would sort ballots for each candidate at polling places, and they would be tallied with inexpensive counting machines like those used by banks. Alternatively, all five candidates could appear on the same ballot, voters would mark preferences, then the ballots would be hand-sorted at the precinct level and tallied.

If that sounds complicated, it's not. Voting is easy and anonymous, and tallying is quick ? the Swiss usually have results in three hours ? as well as verifiable and recountable.

Swiss voters have used this kind of system for decades (and nations such as Canada and Germany use different hand-counted systems), with remarkably high confidence levels in the results (over 90 percent). In addition, the system is inexpensive, with costs only for printing (advocates say they've gotten provisional bids of around $3,000 to $4,000 for the March 8 election; using the county system will cost at least $25,000) and counting. In Switzerland, the cost per vote is about 13 cents, compared to several dollars in many American systems.

Perhaps it's too late to try this on March 8, as city officials assert. On the other hand, with expected low turnout, it would be a perfect opportunity to give it a shot, and would cost less than using the county's clumsy optical-scan system.

But even if such an elegant system can't be used for the upcoming election, it's encouraging that both city and county officials seem willing to consider one for the future. Because, after all, sometimes all you really need is a fork.