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E-voting machines good to go, Ireland says  (WV)

Paul J. Nyden   Saturday Gazette-Mail   22 October 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Secretary of State Betty Ireland ed Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems and Software, or ES&S, "to provide West Virginia with new voting machines," according to her Sept. 15, 2005, press release.

Today, in spite of reports from Jackson and Putnam counties complaining of voting irregularities, Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said Ireland "remains confident that the machines will provide West Virginia with a fair, accurate and clean election.

"She absolutely would not allow any voting technology to be used in the state unless she had confidence it was working."

The voters in question recently described instances where the ES&S electronic machines switched their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates when they cast early votes in county courthouses.

Kent Carper, president of the Kanawha County Commission, said on Tuesday, "I am filing a complaint about ES&S with the secretary of state. I have several major concerns, including the lack of technical support to election officials.

"When you look around the country, and see huge voter lines in places like Florida, you know these machines need technical support," Carper said.

Deputy Attorney General Fran Hughes said on Tuesday, "We are very concerned that in such an historic and important election, there seems to be a problem. And the problem is limited to people who are voting Democratic.

"That gives anybody pause and it certainly merits looking at," Hughes said.

Hughes said each of West Virginia's 55 counties "was given the opportunity to the voting machines they wanted." There were two options - touch screen and optical scan - but both of the machines came from ES&S.

County clerks and ES&S employees, Bailey said, "have examined the machines at issue. As long as the machines are calibrated, they will work properly.... The incidents of miscalibration were isolated."

On Tuesday, Carper sent a memo to Kanawha County Clerk Vera J. McCormick, stating, "I am especially concerned about the inability to directly access the 'in state' tech support, which I believe is in Nitro.

"We were previously assured that ES&S would provide proper in state direct tech support," Carper wrote. "I find it totally unacceptable as to the mystery involved to the name of the ... individual responsible for providing Kanawha County with technical support during the upcoming general election."

Ken Fields, an ES&S spokesman from St. Louis, Mo., said on Tuesday, "Touch-screen machines are precisely accurate. They record the ion that voters intend to make each and every time.

"Voters are required to review ions the machine has highlighted. That is one more element making sure the machines are properly recording votes.

"ES&S iVotronic machines have accurately and securely recorded the votes of millions and millions of voters," Fields said during a telephone interview.

Election Protection, a nonpartisan voter protection coalition based in Washington, D.C., issued a press release on Tuesday stating:

"West Virginians who plan to vote early this year should not be discouraged by recent reports of voting machine problems because resources are available to ensure that every ballot is counted accurately, as intended by the voter."

Election Protection urges voters "to examine their paper receipt after voting to be sure it was read correctly and to call 866-OUR-VOTE with any questions or concerns."

Larry Norden, from New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, said, "Election officials should take any faulty machines offline immediately to correct the problems.... Resources like the [Election Protection] hot line are available for anyone who has concerns, so there is no reason for eligible West Virginians to feel discouraged from voting this year."

Questions about voting machines made by other companies, including Diebold and Sequoia, have also been raised in many other states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Jersey and Florida.

Bailey said, "We reviewed those reports [from some other states] and developed best practices and different security measures. Nothing in those reports leads us to believe our technology is not safe and accurate."



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