Voting comment period extended

By RICHARD VALENTY     Colorado Daily    December 28, 2005

Boulder County extended a deadline Wednesday for public comment on the process to new voting equipment for the 2006 election, giving citizens until Jan. 4 at noon.

The County announced last Thursday, Dec. 22, that it would accept written public comments on a 40-page draft Request For Proposal (RFP) document until 9 a.m. Dec. 28.

A number of local voting activists and representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) complained that the period for comment was not only brief, but also fell in the middle of the holiday season when many people would prefer to spend time with family and/or friends.

Judd Golden, chair of the ACLU Boulder County chapter, said he barely noticed a recent article in a local publication announcing the Dec. 28 deadline.
 

?I glanced at it, and I really wasn't into hard news that day, and I don't think a lot of other people are this time of year,? said Golden.

Golden said he then looked at the 40-page RFP, found it a bit ?overwhelming? in scope and volume, and sent an e-mail to Boulder County asking for a comment period extension to at least Feb. 1 on behalf of the ACLU.

The County granted only an extra week, but Golden said a committee of ACLU members interested in voting issues will issue a unified statement within the week.

?We just want to be sure that issues of voter integrity and voter security are maintained and voter privacy is protected,? Golden said.

Josh Liss, Boulder County elections coordinator, said the County had received ?about a dozen? comments as of early Wednesday afternoon including some ?very good, constructive feedback.?

But he also said extending the comment period might essentially push the entire process back a week as well. He said the 2006 equipment must be in place and operational for the August primaries, and said the County might not take delivery of new equipment until ?mid-April? under a current timeframe.

?So, our staff and election judges will have from mid-April to the primary in August to familiarize ourselves with this equipment,? Liss said. ?We can't hesitate any longer.?

The draft RFP suggests there could be at least two major differences between the 2004 and 2006 elections. The County is accepting bids for touch-screen Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines, and voters might vote at one of roughly 40 to 50 regional ?vote centers? instead of an assigned precinct polling place. There are about 230 precincts in Boulder County.

DREs have been controversial among voting activists who say the voter choice is recorded on digital media instead of a voter-verifiable paper ballot. The voter can't see the digital information, and some believe the voter's choice might be recorded improperly, whether through malfunction or malfeasance.

But voters with disabilities can use DREs effectively. Liss said visually impaired voters, paraplegics or quadriplegics and even voters who don't speak English would be able to vote without assistance on a DRE.

Liss and Dana Williams, public information officer with the Colorado Secretary of State's office, said the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) clearly says counties must have equipment that the disabled can use without assistance in each polling place by the first federal election in 2006.

Voting activist Joe Pezzillo favors ?ballot marker? systems that can print a disabled voter's choice on a verifiable paper ballot. Liss said he contacted the Secretary of State's office ?a couple of weeks ago? regarding the Election System & Software AutoMARK ballot marker, but said ES&S hadn't applied for certification in Colorado.

?If a system is going to be certified for use in Colorado by the time the contract is awarded, and a bid is submitted, it's something we can look at,? Liss said. ?But we can only purchase what's been certified by the state.?

Pezzillo fired back in an e-mail Wednesday saying Boulder County had already used leased voting equipment in 2003 that wasn't certified and that pre-election testing of the existing system in 2005 didn't meet HAVA error-rate specifications.

The RFP also drew the attention of an Election Review Committee (ERC) formed to investigate delays in releasing election results in 2004. Five of the nine ERC members lent their names to a letter sent to Boulder County Wednesday warning the County not to let vendors of electronic systems design the new local system.

?Their goals are to increase their bottom line while maintaining supremacy of market share through secrecy and proprietary methods,? read a passage from the letter. ?Our goals are transparent, efficient and reliable elections.?

Voting activist Neal McBurnett wrote the County to suggest the RFP should require vendors to supply systems able to work with ?statistically valid? post-election audits, and said the evaluation should include ?preferences? for systems using open source software and allowing third-party security evaluations.

Al Kolwicz, executive director of Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Elections (CAMBER), wrote to say any new system should ensure ballot secrecy, since the 2004 and 2005 ballots had non-removable serial codes. He believes the codes violate Colorado election law since people could possibly link the codes to a voter, although a 2004 lawsuit against the County was dismissed in District Court.

Liss said he and staff will read the comments and publish a possibly revised RFP ?shortly after the close of the public comment period.? He said the County Commissioners will hold a public hearing before awarding a contract, but said no date has been set.