Voting machines too close to call

As decision nears, Summit elections panel laments lack of options

By Lisa A. Abraham

Akron Beacon Journal    14 August 2005

The Summit County Board of Elections is about to make a multimillion-dollar decision, but some board members don't think they have much to choose from.

``This whole thing is ridiculous,'' said board member Joseph Hutchinson. ``I don't feel comfortable on any of this.''

The county has a month to decide which type of electronic voting machine it will purchase to comply with the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which calls for the elimination of punch-card voting by the first federal election of 2006.

Summit County became part of a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, which was initiated by voting machine maker Election Systems & Software Inc. The suit brought the board more time to make its decision, but it has yet to result in any additional choices for the board.

ES&S of Nebraska sued when Blackwell tried to impose a May deadline for companies to have their machines state-certified and for counties to new voting systems. The company was successful in obtaining a delay until Nov. 1 for it to attempt to have its touch-screen system certified.

The elections board has two options: touch-screen voting systems, or DRE (for direct-recording electronic systems), which come with a voter verifiable paper audit trail, or optical-scan machines, which read a paper ballot that is marked in pencil by the voter.

Green-based Diebold Election Systems Inc. is the only company to have its touch-screen DRE system certified in Ohio. Diebold, ES&S and Hart Intercivic all have optical-scan systems certified.

As a result of the ES&S lawsuit, the board must make a provisional ion of a voting system and vendor by Sept. 15. The ion can be changed as late as Nov. 15, if other machines are certified by Nov. 1.

Board members have concerns about touch-screen machines, which have received mixed reviews nationally.

In late June, California's secretary of state rejected the Diebold machine currently certified in Ohio the AccuVote-TSX. In extensive testing in California, the machines experienced numerous problems, including screen freezes and paper jams, causing the state to refuse to certify them.

Mark Radke, director of marketing for Diebold, said that the problems in California had nothing to do with the accuracy of the vote count but were mechanical in nature. Of 10,721 votes cast on 96 units in the testing, every vote was counted accurately, he said.

In July, Utah officials agreed to purchase more than $20 million of Diebold's touch screens to replace that state's punch-card systems, and Mississippi also recently picked the same machines.

The best solution now?

Hutchinson, however, said he has concerns about the technology.

``My real concern is will the DREs be obsolete in the near future? They're big, clunky machines. They're expensive to store and expensive to buy,'' he said. ``We're being forced to buy machines, I think, before the technology has had a chance to really provide us with what could be a really good, sustainable solution to the punch card. I'm just not comfortable with the choice. I think the optical scanner may be the way to go.''

Hutchinson said he wishes the county could wait a few years until touch-screen technology becomes better and cheaper.

Board member Wayne Jones echoed Hutchinson's frustration.

``I'm a bit concerned about the technology of the DREs. I'm just not totally comfortable with it yet. There are so many unanswered questions with regard to security, paper trails, recounts. All of those things are issues that we have to deal with,'' he said.

Jones said he thinks the county will end up with touch-screen machines eventually but in the short term isn't sure that all of the bugs have been worked out of the technology. He said he's leaning toward optical-scan machines.

According to Blackwell's office, 58 of Ohio's 88 counties have chosen their voting machines so far 46 have ed Diebold's touch screen, 10 have chosen ES&S' optical scan, and one has chosen Diebold's optical scan. Licking County's board of elections had a tie vote between Diebold's DRE and optical scan machines.

Summit board member Russ Pry said he believes touch-screen machines are the way to go because the technology is better and they'll be the voting machine of the future.

``Based upon what I have seen on what is out there, I believe that DRE machines have certain advantages. Right now I would be leaning to go with DREs... I think I may be in the minority,'' he said.

In the past, board member Alex Arshinkoff has expressed reservations about the touch screens because of their lack of a paper ballot. But for now, Arshinkoff said he's still undecided.

Elections board staffers are currently calculating the price to buy and maintain each system. Either choice will cost in the millions most of which will be paid for with federal HAVA money. Optical-scan machines will be less expensive to purchase, but come with the ongoing cost of buying paper ballots, which the county will have to absorb.

A vote for optical scan

Ion Sancho, election supervisor for Leon County, Fla., swears by the optical-scan technology despite an experiment earlier this year that proved the system is not tamper-proof.

In 1992, Sancho purchased optical-scan machines for his county, which includes Tallahassee, from a company that later came under Diebold's control.

When approached by BlackBoxVoting.org, an elections advocacy group, Sancho agreed to let the group's computer experts try to hack into the Leon County system.

Sancho said the system could not be hacked into from the outside, but it was breached internally.

``What we found was the so-called protection that all of us thought existed with the system didn't exist at all,'' he said. The hackers were able to alter totals for candidates and not leave any computer ``fingerprints'' on the audit log, Sancho said.

``It was a stunning revelation to us because we were told this couldn't be done,'' he said.

However, because the tampering could occur only internally, Sancho said he has been able to take steps to prevent possible problems namely limiting access to the vote tabulation server to just two employees.

Radke said the hacking could take place only because Sancho gave outsiders full access to the system something that in reality should never happen.

Sancho, however, remains a big supporter of optical-scan machines. He boasts that even in 2000 when Florida elections were fraught with problems, Leon County had the most accurate elections in the state.

Sancho said he's not a fan of touch-screen voting because, in his opinion, its lack of paper ballots means voting isn't transparent.

``We can manually show everyone the accuracy of the totals,'' he said of the paper ballots used in optical-scan machines.