Changes in how we vote
 
 
 
 
BRAD DURRELL, Perspective    Bridgeport News     December 16, 2005 
 
 
When Bridgeport voters cast their ballots in the fall of 2006, they likely won't use the mechanical lever machines of the past.
 

That's because the state, with pressure from the federal government, plans to replace the existing machines with new ones that will provide paper confirmation to voters and make voting easier for people with disabilities.

As anyone who has lived outside Connecticut knows, few places in the United States use mechanical lever machines anymore.

The machines are reliable, and most election officials in Connecticut - as well as voters - have grown accustomed to them.

However, the machines are no longer being manufactured, and finding spare parts when problems arise is becoming more difficult every year.

More importantly, the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) essentially guarantees the old machines don't have a long future.

The Act was passed after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, and is designed to make it easier for people to vote and to assure the accuracy - and consistency - of the vote count.

The federal government is supposed to provide states with the funds needed to buy new voting machines.

In Connecticut, the Secretary of the State's Office is overseeing the ion process for more modern voting machines.

This has turned into somewhat of a nightmare for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, with various groups lobbying for certain machine models. Making the wrong ion could lead to some kind of voting or counting disaster, and that certainly would harm Bysiewicz's political career.

The state has narrowed the ion down to three voting machine models - two ATM-style machines (Diebold TSX and Avante) and an electronic lever machine (the push-button Danaher Electronic).

The proposed models recently went on a road show around Connecticut so the public could check them out at one location in each of the state's five congressional districts.

One of the demonstration sites was Bridgeport City Hall, and a steady stream of voters showed up to look at, ask questions about and test the three proposed models.

Most of the people there had a special interest in the process due to their involvement in politics. Candidates, party activists and poll workers asked lots of questions.

Many, especially those who are older, expressed concern about the chance of hanky-panky with whatever style of machine is ed. They fear the use of computerized machines could lead to widespread tampering by hackers, causing havoc with the democracy.

"Who can access these computers?" asked a suspicious Bob Lewis, a Bridgeport resident who has worked at polling places on Election Day.

Still, Lewis was impressed with the three proposed machines. "They are real good, but the elderly people will have a hard time," he predicted. "Even with the mechanical machines we have now, you have to work with them. It will take patience and time to get people used to them."

Lewis' advice: When the new machines are put into use, have lots of demonstration models and poll workers available at polling places to show people how they work before they actually cast their ballots.

Elizabeth Thibault of Westport liked the Diebold model. "The process is easier; it's more user-friendly and it's not intimidating," she said. "I work with computers so it's easy for me, but I'm not so sure how my grandmother would be able to use it."

Howard Swanson of Trumbull liked the Danaher model, which is being promoted as an electronic version of the mechanical lever machine now in use in Connecticut.

"It looks like the present format, so it's similar with what you do now," Swanson said.

He said Danaher has made voting machines for two decades, and its machines now are used in 13 states. "They have a good track record," he said.

Chris Panik, a newly elected alderman in Shelton, called the demonstration "a neat opportunity" for people to check out the proposed new machines.

The people who will make the final choice "should get the public involved because it's the public who will be using them," Panik said.

Chris Barnes, director of project development at the University of Connecticut, said people at all the demonstration sites filled out surveys to provide state officials with guidance.

In addition, focus groups of voters are taking place, and registrars of voters across the state are being consulted.

"People are really excited to have a voice in the process," Barnes said while in Bridgeport. "This is the first time in state history the average person has had a say about what type of voting machines to use."

The UConn polling operation, where Barnes works, was asked to oversee the public input part of the ion process. Other steps are a technical analysis and cost comparison.

Many types of voting machines are used in other states, from punch cards (now being phased out due to the Bush-Gore problem) to optical scanners to ATM-style models.

All have flaws, just as the mechanical lever machines do. The primary advantage to other systems is that they can count votes much faster, which is important in larger states.

Personally, I wish we could keep the current machines. They have worked well, and we all know how to use them.

At the same time, we shouldn't fear change or the unknown. In the computer age, it seems sort of silly to depend on a mechanical device to determine election outcomes.

I don't envy Bysiewicz because, as the country has discovered all too well in recent close elections, no system is perfect. With a deadline for a decision fast approaching, she must pick from three imperfect options.