Election officials criticize glitches

Kiffmeyer defends voter registration

BY BILL SALISBURY Twin Cities Pioneer Press 01 October 2004

Minnesota's new statewide voter registration system is still plagued by problems, local election officials said Thursday. But with just 32 days before the election, they pledged to make sure — at taxpayers' expense — that every eligible voter who wants to cast a ballot can do so.

"We'll do whatever it takes" to get voters registered, said Cass County Auditor-Treasurer Sharon Anderson. She spoke on behalf of the Minnesota Association of County Officers Thursday at a Capitol hearing of the Senate Elections Committee.

County election administrators have been complaining for months that Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer has been rushing to install the new voter registration system before it has been adequately tested.

On Thursday, they told senators the new computer system is slowing down their data entry and using up their overtime budgets to get new voters registered.

"The system's performance is failing," said Dorothy McClung, Ramsey County's chief elections officer.

She said her staff was often knocked off the system during peak hours, erasing all the data they had entered. As a result, she said, she brings in staff before business Dhours and on Saturdays to enter data — with taxpayers footing the overtime bill.

A county officers' association survey of 27 auditors found that all but a few characterized the system as "slow and, at times for some, very slow."

Another survey by two liberal interest groups in the past week found that two-thirds of the 74 counties that responded reported problems with errors or being knocked off the system.

"If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be frustration," said Carlton County Auditor-Treasurer Paul Gassert. "Things in the election process that used to take minutes now take hours, and things that used to take hours now take days."

A defensive Kiffmeyer, a Republican who declined two previous invitations to testify before the Democratic-controlled committee, responded that she has sent her staff to seven or eight counties to solve problems. And not all the problems are the state's fault, she said. Some counties have outdated computers or inadequate transmission capacity.

She said she dispatched three staff members to Ramsey County to work out the kinks. But McClung said they didn't solve the problems. "Things are not getting better."

"I beg to differ," Kiffmeyer replied, citing improvements in other counties.

"It's like you're coming from two different planets," Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, told Kiffmeyer and the county officials.

County election officials complained to the committee at two previous hearings about poor communications with the secretary of state's office.

The new federal Help America Vote Act requires states to create statewide voter registration systems. But 41 other states got waivers to delay putting the new systems into effect until 2006. Many county auditors wanted Kiffmeyer to apply for a similar waiver.

She did not seek a delay, she told the committee, because in 2006 the state also must provide new voting machines in all precincts to allow disabled people to vote independently, and she didn't want to try to install two new systems at the same time.

While county election administrators are having trouble getting the new system up and running, all those who testified agreed it would be excellent once it's operational.

FYI

Eighty percent of eligible Minnesota voters are registered to vote. Only Maine has registered a larger percentage.

While the state ran low on voter registration cards last week, more are being printed daily, said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer. A total of 2.5 million cards will be available for the 600,000 eligible Minnesota voters who have not yet registered.