Doubts about technology and a lack of funds seen slowing voting upgrades
By Robert Tanner, Associated Press, in the Boston Globe:
Political wrangling and doubts about new technology have slowed efforts to improve the nation's election system, leaving many states open to the same problems that caused the 2000 presidential stalemate, a new report found.

A study released yesterday by the Washington-based Election Reform Information Project found that despite promised reforms only a few states made comprehensive changes to voting machines and registration in the last three years.

"This has not gone as quickly as some of us who have responsibility for the transformation would have liked," said Ken Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state. "I would say, as a nation, we're somewhere between a C-plus and a B."

It will be 2006, at the earliest, before voters nationwide see the kinds of sweeping improvements that policy makers said were necessary after the 2000 election.

One problem: Federal money has been slow in coming. Of $3.9 billion authorized in 2002, only $650 million has been distributed to states so far, half of that focused on planning. And Congress only appointed a federal oversight commission to handle doling out the money last month.

Adding to the inertia, computer scientists have raised doubts about the security of the touchscreen, ATM-style machines that federal law encourages for the disabled and which many states are considering for widespread use.

"The expectation for reform has outstripped reality," said Doug Chapin, director of the information project, a nonpartisan group that studies elections.

The report found that:

 Punch cards will still be used in some jurisdictions in 22 states, despite the federal Help America Vote Act's encouragement to retire the equipment that was at the center of the Florida deadlock in 2000.

 Statewide registration databases, which should eliminate the potential for fraud and for voters mistakenly being denied the chance to vote, are still a few years off. Forty-one states sought waivers to delay action on registration until 2006.

 While some polling places in 42 states will have new machines in place for the presidential contest, in many states that means small pilot programs in a few counties or towns, rather than wholesale improvements.

Still, there were some changes. Georgia and Maryland switched to statewide touchscreen systems; Florida the start of all the controversy eliminated its punch cards; and large counties in California and Texas ped punch cards, too.

A separate study on voting technologies showed how voting has changed so far, and how much further it has to go. This year, a third of registered voters if they choose to cast a ballot will use older technology that reformers hope to phase out, while over half will be using the newer technology.

That's an improvement, but not sweeping change. In 2000, 48.7 percent of registered voters had older punch cards and lever machines at their polling places, according to a preliminary analysis by Election Data Services Inc., a Washington-based consulting firm.

This year, the newer technologies touchscreens and optical scan equipment that reads paper ballots with filled-in ovals similar to SAT tests will be in use for 56.6 percent of registered voters. That's up from 43 percent.

"The changes that everybody wanted to happen just aren't happening," said Kimball Brace, president of EDS. "And it also raises the possibility that in a close election, we get another Florida-type situation."

Still, the money promised from Washington is on its way. Yesterday, the Senate passed a huge spending bill that had been delayed for nearly four months and includes another $1.5 billion for state voting improvements.

And one change will assure voters in all but five states a chance to vote, even if the validity of their registration is challenged at the polling place. Provisional ballots will be available, so voters can still cast ballots while their claim is investigated. If the registration is later discovered to be legitimate, their votes will count.

That change alone is estimated to capture the choices of between 1.5 million and 3 million voters whose ballots were lost in the last election.

Despite the delays, some officials are moving ahead. Blackwell hopes that outmoded punch cards and lever machines will be replaced in three-quarters of Ohio's 71 counties by November.