Are new voting devices flawed?
$27M: Utah officials back the purchase; a California politician says the booths have a 10% failure rate
By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune   30 July 2005

California has rejected Diebold's electronic voting booths, claiming the computer freezes and the printer jams too often.
   Those same machines are expected to be in every Utah precinct by the primary election next June.
   But Utah election officials still stand behind their $27 million purchase, saying they expect the company to fix any glitches.
   "I'm confident when Diebold ships their product to Utah it will work the way we need it to," said Michael Cragun, director of Utah's elections division.
    California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is not as optimistic. He told The Oakland Tribune on Thursday: "There was a failure rate of about 10 percent, and that's not good enough for the voters of California and not good enough for me."
   States throughout the union are searching for new voting devices that will satisfy the requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, a federal mandate that followed the 2000 election controversy in Florida. Few companies have entered the race for hefty state contracts. Diebold had only one competitor in Utah.
   The state is still negotiating the details of a contract that would purchase at least 7,500 machines with federal money at a cost of $3,150 each.
   The electronic booths allow for touch-screen voting that notifies people if they pick two candidates in the same category or skip a race. Blind voters can follow prompts through headphones to candidates on their own for the first time. The system also allows for quicker counting of election results - at least if it works properly.
   California held a mock election July 20 that stretched for eight hours and involved almost 50 local election officials and contractors. They watched as the machines seized and the printers failed.
 
 
California, like Utah, is requiring a paper trail so election workers can verify the machine counts if any questions arise.
   Diebold spokesman David Bear told The Oakland Tribune that Ohio-based Diebold will fix the problems and reapply for California's approval in the next month. Salt Lake Tribune calls to the company Friday were not returned.
   Kathy Dopp, a resident of Park City and a member of the non-profit group U.S. Count Votes, decries Utah's association with Diebold.
   "It makes no sense for Utah to be purchasing a system other locales around the country have found doesn't work well," she said Friday.
   Dopp would prefer an optical scan system, where voters write on the ballots, which are then fed through a computerized counting machine.
   But Utah officials have no plans to revisit the technological options.
   "The decision has been made," Cragun said.
   Utah officials will test each Diebold touch-screen machine once they are delivered and the state is now working on a protocol to test the voting booths before each election. Cragun said he would talk to Diebold officials in Utah about the California mock election.
   "Diebold is a good partner," Cragun said. "We are planning to work with them."