Electoral Meltdown in Fairfax

Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A20

Fairfax County recently spent $3.5 million on electronic voting machines, which were introduced to voters in November. They were a disaster.

I was an election officer assisting voters during that election. I also have many years of experience in developing computer graphics systems. This one was not ready for prime time.

County officials maintain that the machines "did exactly what they were supposed to" and that they "get an A-plus" [Metro, Nov. 6]. Yet precinct and voter records show dozens of problems such as sluggish operation, confusing layout, loss of ions, wireless network failures and, worst of all, frequent crashes. In some cases machines locked up and had to be taken out of service.

Such failures should never happen. Accuracy and reliability are crucial in an election. And it is not acceptable to blame the problems on operator error.

The county's voting machines violate many of the accepted rules of graphic design as well as the Federal Election Commission's low standards for such machines. Consider, for example, the use of the color red to confirm a voter's ion. In our culture, red means a problem think stop signs and traffic lights not that everything is okay.

Then there are questionable design choices such as the use of an unnecessary, unreliable and hacker-prone wireless network to transfer voting results between machines.

The vendor, Advanced Voting Solutions, has not proven itself capable of providing a stable, effective system, and it should not be trusted to correct the faults in the voting machines. A concerted study conducted by an independent commission of technical experts will be necessary to ferret out all the instances of instability and poor design. Only then can the public be assured that when November's crucial election arrives, the voting machines will be as good as they can be, with unquestioned reliability and easy, intuitive use.

RAOUL E. DRAPEAU

Vienna