VotersUnite!

Voting machine debacle inexcusable

By State Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, (R-37th)
01/29/2004

As we near the Feb. 10 Democratic presidential primary in Virginia, it seems an appropriate time for me to voters in Fairfax County on my experiences investigating the problems with the new voting machines that were used for the first time in the November 2003 general election.

As many of you may recall, there were numerous complaints about these machines. Reported complaints included removal of ballots and/or voting machines from polling places, machine malfunctions, touch-screen irregularities (e.g., highlighted names did not correspond with buttons pushed), precincts falling short on votes, complaints about privacy while voting, no paper ballot trails and the list goes on.

As a representative of the 37th Senate District, I took it upon myself to investigate the machines that were used on Election Day.

I made numerous phone calls to the Electoral Board in Fairfax County and received no cooperation from the staff there. Specifically, Maggie Luca, Secretary of the Electoral Board, stalled our attempts to test the machines in the condition that they were used on Election Day.

There was only a few weeks' window of opportunity to run such testing, as the Democratic presidential primary was coming up in February, so the machines were scheduled to be reprogrammed in early January.

I spoke with two statisticians to formulate the best plan to analyze the performance of the machines, but we were continually refused access to the machines. One excuse after another was cited by Mrs. Luca. As we knocked down each excuse, a new one was thrown up.

Throughout the back and forth with Mrs. Luca, I was stunned as I listened to the lack of enthusiasm to further investigate the discrepancies reported on Nov. 4, 2003. It was made clear to me that Mrs. Luca would rather downplay the mishaps of that Election Day and sweep any and all evidence that would lead to an explanation or a better understanding under the rug. This was all the more disappointing given our previous experience with Mrs. Luca, which had been quite positive.

I continued to request that we be able to test the machines up until a few days before Christmas. On Dec. 23, for the first time, Mrs. Luca told me that I would not be permitted to access the voting machines (along with a team of volunteers). She gave no reason for the refusal.

When I asked how she finally came to this conclusion, she referred me to the County Attorney's office. I placed a call to the County Attorney's office on Dec. 23, but I never received a return phone call.

And so the holidays came and went, and it was time to load the machines for the presidential primary. We were granted the nearly useless right to observe as the voting machines were reloaded for the Feb. 10 Democratic primary balloting.

There will never be another opportunity to cast test votes on machines as they were used in November 2003. Mrs. Luca made sure of that. Many of the discrepancies that were reported on Nov. 4 can no longer be investigated as the machines were wiped clean. To say that the voters of Fairfax were not well served is an understatement.

And where was the Board of Supervisors? Chairman Gerry Connolly (D) made a lot of noise about the problems on Nov. 4, but he never did anything about it aside from public proclamations.

We are left to do the best we can to improve the systems and procedures in place to ensure not only that our voting is accurate and secure, but that such accuracy and security is clearly visible to all. That is the only way to instill confidence in voters that our election process is fair and accurate.

Hopefully, by the end of the session, we will have better laws in place to deal with these situations. I, along with others, am carrying bills to remedy as many of the problems as possible.

If you have any questions concerning this legislation, contact our Richmond office at 804-698-7537 or e-mail us at ken4sen@cuccinelli.com .