Doubts fuel touch-screen voting debate in Broward, Miami-Dade

By Ihosvani Rodriguez   South Florida Sun-Sentinel
April 13 2005

Mired again in controversy, Miami-Dade County's touch-screen voting machines could be on their way out.

Miami-Dade election officials are considering whether to disconnect the county's $24.5 million electronic voting system, after the latest rounds of complaints about the machines and some Broward County officials said Tuesday they would like to follow Miami-Dade's lead.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez gave county officials a June 30 deadline to conduct a thorough review of the Elections Department and whether the county could switch to paper ballots with optical scanners.

The April 4 request came less than a week after the county's former top election official, Constance Kaplan, resigned abruptly following revelations that the Elections Department lost hundreds of votes during the March 8 slot machine referendum because of a coding error in the electronic system.

Her March 31 resignation was the latest voting machine-related embarrassment for the county, dating back to a disastrous 2002 gubernatorial primary in which the county was plagued by poor planning, insufficient training and widespread glitches with the ATM-like devices.

Days after Kaplan's resignation, on April 4 Alvarez fired off a memo to County Manager George Burgess in which the mayor complained about the Elections Department's latest black-eye and suggested the department study a new system.

"I am concerned that the recent issues with respect to the Elections Department have affected the confidence and faith the public has in our voting system," Alvarez wrote.

Alvarez said Tuesday that the labor-intensive system the county purchased from Ohio-based Elections Systems & Software has spiked the costs of running an election to almost $7 million per election. He wondered if a new system would be cheaper in the long run.

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade's debate about whether to ditch the voting machines renewed complaints about them in Broward County, where county commissioners paid Election Systems & Software $17.2 million for the same machines.

Commissioner Ilene Lieberman said the county should determine if another government would want to buy its voting machines and then use the proceeds to buy optical-scan equipment. However, she said that is unlikely to occur.

Commissioner Ben Graber also would like to see Broward's electronic voting system scrapped.

"I never thought the technology was there or believed the bill of goods sold to us by the companies," Graber said. "There really is no recount with computers and that leaves us with only a leap of faith that they are accurate."

In Palm Beach County, Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson said officials there want the state to approve a system that provides printed receipts for their electronic machines. The county, which paid Sequoia Voting Systems $14 million for its machines, has not experienced the magnitude of problems the other counties complain of, Anderson said.

In Miami-Dade, however, the machines are a continuing source of frustration. On the same day Alvarez sent out his memo, Burgess dispatched one of his own to new Elections Supervisor Lester Sola, who was spending his second day on the job.

The county manager requested a full report of the elections department's operations and a study on implementing a scan system.

Nevertheless, Burgess sketched a rosier picture of the county's ability to collect and tabulate votes at the polls.

"We must all remember our system worked and worked well in August and November," Burgess wrote to Alvarez. "We have had issues and challenges, but our voting process in 2004 was better than it has ever been."

It won't be the first time Miami-Dade investigated the cost of optical-scan machines. Last August, former Mayor Alex Penelas asked Burgess to determine whether the county should use paper ballots and optical scanners. Burgess determined it would not be possible to replace the county's 7,200 machines by the November election.

Diebold Elections Systems told Miami-Dade officials it could equip the county with a new system for $14 million. The price included 1,500 machines and 7,500 lighted voting booths. Then Elections Systems & Software, which equips the county with the touch-screen machines and some optical scanners, said it could provide 600 machines for $3.2 million.

Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, who heads the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition and is a longtime critic of the Elections Department, said studying a different system has merit as long as a switch is not made in haste and for political reasons.

"I am not going to sit here and say a scan system is better," Rodriguez-Taseff said. "I think there are other options that need to be explored. The money you spend on the new system is worth it if you do your homework and buy a solution. You can't go from a jalopy to a Pinto."

In Broward County, Mayor Kristin Jacobs and Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger said county officials have spent too much on the touch-screen machines. But like their counterparts in Palm Beach County, they don't want to scrap the touch-screen machines; instead, they want to lobby state officials for technology that would provide printed receipts.

"If I had it to do over again and knew everything I do today, I'd go with optical scan," Jacobs said. "But we can't go backwards now considering the money we have involved."