New Voting System In The Works

The November general election may be the last time Oklahoma uses its current election system. State Election Board Secretary Michael Clingman says the state can boast it has avoided technical glitches that have plagued other states in recent years. But, Clingman says it will have to be upgraded.
Oklahoma has $30 million from the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act tucked away to improve its optical scanning system of voting.

Clingman says officials want to keep the paper ballots and optical scanners, but they want to improve the technology. Much of the new system's cost will be for replacing the main frame computer at the Capitol. About 3,000 voting machines also will be replaced in the state's 77 counties.

Clingman says Oklahoma is waiting for new voting machines to be perfected that retain the optical scanning feature. Congress approved money to upgrade election systems after voting irregularities in the 2000 presidential election in Florida led to the Supreme Court decision that decided the presidential election in favor of George W. Bush over Al Gore.

States raise doubts over voting machines
Top officials declare equipment unfit to use
By GEORGE MERRITT

With the presidential race in full swing, Colorado and other states have found critical flaws in the accuracy and security of their electronic voting machines, forcing officials to scramble to return to the paper ballots they abandoned after the Florida debacle of 2000.

In December alone, top election officials in Ohio and Colorado declared that widely used voting equipment is unfit for elections.

"Every system that is out there, one state or another has found that they are no good," said John Gideon of the advocacy group Voters Unite. "Everybody is starting to look at this now and starting to realize that there is something wrong."

California, Ohio and Florida have found that security on touch-screen voting machines is inadequate. Testers have been able to disable the systems and even change vote totals.

Florida's "hanging chads" in the disputed 2000 Al Gore-George W. Bush election exposed the imperfection of paper ballot counting and helped lead to a $3 billion government initiative to bring voting into the digital age. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 required that states have electronic equipment in place by 2010.

In tests, researchers in Ohio and Colorado found that electronic voting systems could be corrupted with magnets or with Treos and other similar handheld devices.

In Colorado, two kinds of Sequoia Voting Systems electronic voting machines used in Denver and three other counties were decertified because of security weaknesses, like lack of password protection. Equipment made by Election Systems and Software had programming errors. And optical scanning machines, made by Hart InterCivic, had an error rate of one out of every 100 votes during tests by the state.

"I was surprised," Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Friday of the failures his office found. "It's an awful position to be put in, but I feel strongly it's important that this equipment be secure and accurately count a vote."

Now some states are turning back to paper - in some cases, just weeks before primary elections. California, Ohio and Florida have chosen to use scanning machines that count paper ballots electronically.

In Colorado, which has spent $41 million in federal grants on electronic systems, many of the state's nearly 3 million registered voters - and the county officials who conduct the voting - don't know what their elections will look like in 2008.

Coffman and Colorado's clerks and recorders are in a dispute over whether to use mail-in ballots or cast paper ballots at polling places.

All fear time is running out.

"We look at each other and go, 'We have used this equipment in three elections. Why did it get taken to a test board and get decertified?'" said Debbie Green, who heads the Colorado County Clerks Association and is the clerk and recorder of rural Park County. "There are some counties having elections in January and February and they don't have any election equipment."

It can take two years to put a voting system in place, and overhauling a system just weeks before some states hold presidential primaries will invite a new round of problems, they say.

"To throw the baby out with the bath water is certainly shortsighted," said David Beirne, executive director of the Election Technology Council, which represents manufacturers of 90 percent of electronic systems used in the country.

States have their own certification standards, complicating things for manufacturers. "From an industry standpoint, trying to design a voting system when you don't know how it's being judged is causing a lot of problems," Beirne said.

And having a paper ballot does not guarantee security.

"If you look at the history of election fraud, you are really talking about paper," said Merle King, executive director of the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

Colorado - Voting Machines For Major Counties Decertified

Voting Machines For Major Counties Decertified

Machines Have Problems With Security, Accuracy, Secretary Of State Says

6:59 am MST December 18, 2007

DENVER -- Colorado's top election official decertified electronic voting machines used in some of the state's largest counties on Monday, including Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson.

The devices are also used in Pueblo, Mesa and Elbert counties.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman cited security or accuracy problems in the decertified machines.

A number of electronic scanners used to count ballots were also decertified, including a type used by Boulder County.

Coffman said the system had a 1 percent error rate when counting ballots. "So for every 100 ballots we tested, we found there was an error with one of those ballots," Coffman said.

The manufacturers have 30 days to appeal his ruling.

Coffman announced in March that he had adopted new rules for testing electronic voting machines after problems in the November election.

He said at the time that the four electronic voting systems used in all 64 Colorado counties would have to apply for recertification. The four systems are manufactured by Hart InterCivic, Premier Election Solutions -- formerly known as Diebold Election Systems -- Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software.

Coffman had also put Denver, Pueblo, Douglas, Montrose and Routt counties on an election watch list for problems in the November 2006 election. Pueblo has since been removed from the list.

Critics of electronic voting say there are no fixes that will work. Al Kolwicz told 7NEWS that with electronic voting, there is no way to know for certain that a vote has been properly counted.

More lawsuits are possible from both the election machine companies and public interest groups opposed to computerized voting.

On Tuesday, Colorado county clerks and members of the General Assembly will convene at 9 a.m. to hear an explanation from Hoffman about the results of the certification process.

Reaction From County Clerks

"This report is really just part of the larger equation for us. Once we feel we have the full picture of what the Secretary of State's report means, we can move forward with choosing our systems and preparing for the 2008 election season," said Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O'Malley.

"Our number one priority is to ensure that anyone who is registered to vote in next year's election gets a ballot and their vote is counted accurately," said Boulder County Clerk & Recorder Hillary Hall.

She and the Boulder County Elections Division staff have already begun reviewing the Secretary's 188-page document detailing the certification process and its findings.

"We need time to review today's findings and to evaluate the impact on Boulder County's voting system," said Hall. "The document released today is an overview of the testing results and we expect to obtain additional information at tomorrow's hearing. Any statement at this point would be premature. We will keep the public informed as we proceed."


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/14875334/detail.html



A report issued by the Secretary of State's office details a myriad of problems such as lack of password protection on the systems, controls that could give voters unauthorized access, and the absence of any way to track or detect security violations.

http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=833