Backup system wanted to prevent repeat of Carteret lost-vote fiasco

MARK JOHNSON   Charlotte Observer   10 February 2005

RALEIGH - A special committee of citizens and legislators approved proposed legislation Wednesday that would require all voting machines in North Carolina to produce a paper copy of ballots so voters can see and verify them.

The legislation, which is only a recommendation at this point, marks the first steps by lawmakers to respond to foul-ups in last fall's election, including the embarrassing loss of more than 4,000 votes in Carteret County by a malfunctioning electronic voting machine.

The proposed bills should give voters "more confidence in our system," said Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, and a committee co-chair. "I don't think there's anything more important."

The bills now have to be introduced in the General Assembly, where their fate is uncertain.

The committee included computer experts, lawyers, elections officials and voting reform advocates, who presented, and sometimes sparred over, differing proposals. They wound up with an overwhelming majority supporting several key provisions, including:

? Requiring voting machine manufacturers to divulge the source code, the computer language blueprints of how their machines work, for the state board of elections to review.

? Letting the state board of elections limit counties to buying two or three types of voting machines, giving state officials more uniformity and control over the equipment used.

? Conducting hand-eye counts of a sampling of ballots from each county. If those counts differ significantly from the machine count, then the entire county's ballots will be counted by hand.

The proposals pleased most committee members, including David Allen, a former computer systems engineer and paper ballot activist who was on the committee. He voted for the bills, saying they were "the minimum the voters will accept" and praised the committee's effort to hold the machine manufacturers accountable.

Raleigh lawyer Roger Knight, who has handled elections cases, voted against the bills because they didn't allow for alternative methods of verifying a ballot besides paper, such as audio or video recording of votes.

"We ought to ... keep options open for different technology," he said.

Once introduced, the bills will be assigned to different committees in the General Assembly for consideration and possible changes.