Reliable elections
County's long-term option: paper ballots for all

Editorial     Daytona News-Journal    December 13, 2005

The Volusia County Council nears a Jan. 1 federal deadline for purchasing voting equipment that allows disabled voters to cast ballots independently and secretly. That is a good thing on paper.

The problem is, the technology is well behind the law. So the County Council faces a conundrum. It will have to meet the federal deadline because it must abide by the law. It could also lose a $700,000 federal grant to help pay for voting machines if a contract isn't signed by Dec. 31. Yet the voting systems for the disabled that are before the council will not serve the voters well in the long run.

Of the companies submitting bids, the council on Friday will choose between two Diebold Elections Systems or Election Systems and Software. Both offer touch-screen systems that do not provide paper verification of votes. If the machine records a vote inaccurately due to a malfunction, the voter has no recourse.

With ESS, however, the county's contract that would allow it to exchange the touch screens for a system called AutoMARK that enables disabled voters to use the same ballot as all voters use a paper optical scan ballot where voters mark choices by filling in circles. The optical scan ballots have been proven accurate, are cheaper than touch-screen systems and don't need the continual, expensive upgrades that touch-screen systems do.

The choice that the council has to make is considerable. The ESS system would cost $2.6 million initially for 210 touch-screen machines for the disabled plus 231 optical scan machines for all other voters. That would be $1.9 million after the $700,000 grant is deducted and possibly less if other federal grants are used.

The Diebold system the same one the council rejected in July would cost $782,185 for 10 touch-screen units for the disabled, or about $82,000 after the grant is deducted. The county now uses Diebold optical scan machines, and Diebold has said it would sue if the county attempts to use devices, such as AutoMARK, with its machines.

From a financial viewpoint, the council would seem to have an easy decision. But if it goes with Diebold, county voters would be voting on two entirely different systems touch-screen and optical scan with different standards. And with the touch-screen machines, the disabled could not be guaranteed the same reliability in casting ballots that other voters would have. The two-vote system, which has been challenged elsewhere as being unconstitutional, could eventually force the county to buy the more expensive touch-screen system for all voters.

The ESS contract is similar to those that a dozen other Florida counties have adopted or are about to adopt. After the AutoMARK system is certified by the state (it won federal certification earlier this year), the county could trade the touch-screen machines for AutoMARK, which provides paper verification.

The ESS contract offers the better long-term deal. It would not put the county is a position of eventually having to buy the touch screens for all.

Blame lawmakers (federal and state) for putting the county in this difficult position. Laws that were intended to improve the integrity of elections passed after the 2000 presidential balloting fiasco have put good ideas ahead of technical capabilities.

According to a September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the touch-screen systems "hold promise" but are not yet secure or reliable.

"In a series of recent reports," the GAO states, "election officials, computer security experts, citizen advocacy groups, and others have raised significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems, citing instances of weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and vague or incomplete standards, among other issues."

That is why so many voters are insisting upon "paper trails" proof of votes that can be accurately recounted. The County Council should make a decision that supports the integrity of elections. Spending more money initially would assure voters of reliability in the long run.