Board OKs non-certified voting machines
Anjeanette Damon

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
3/9/2004 11:40 pm

Northern Nevada voters may be casting their ballots this November on electronic machines that have not been federally certified, a problem critics said could jeopardize the entire election.

The Board of Examiners approved a $9.3 million contract Tuesday for Secretary of State Dean Heller to order 4,500 touch-screen voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems. Heller has mandated that those machines be fitted with a printer to produce a voter-verifiable paper record of the electronic ballot cast by the voter.

The problem is that no federal guidelines exist to certify a machine with such a printer, and federal law requires states to use only certified machines.

Heller said the machines will be certified but not the printers. Because there are no federal guidelines, he will hire the experts traditionally used by the Federal Elections Commission to inspect the voting machines to ensure the printers are working properly.

“We’ll just do it ourselves,” Heller said. “I promised the voters they will have a paper trail, and I’m not going back on that.”

Guidelines for the printers won’t be drafted until the end of the year, Heller said.

Alan Glover, president of the State Association of Clerks and Recorders, said uncertified machines could cast doubt on the election results.

“If you add something to a machine that is not certified, I think it throws the results of the elections right into the courts,” Glover said. “For the purpose of the voters, they do not know whether their vote is going to count or not.”

Nevada will be the first state in the nation to use the voter-verified paper record system.

Federal legislation passed after problems with punch card ballots in Florida sent the 2000 presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court requires all polling places to have at least one touch-screen voting machine at each poll.

Heller, who is tasked with carrying out that law, wanted to standardize voting across the state and opted to buy machines for every precinct in Northern Nevada. Clark County already uses touch-screen machines.

After a backlash by Northern Nevada voters who said they didn’t trust the computerized machines, Heller agreed to the mandate of the paper record.

The paper record, printed underneath a clear plastic window, can be viewed by the voter but cannot be taken from the machine or touched by the voter.

Voter Carissa Snedeker, a 47-year-old database administrator, said she favors the paper record but would like to see the machines certified first.

“I’ll feel better that I can see my vote,” she said. “But I would hate to see them go forward with them unless they are certified.”

In 2002, a similar problem with uncertified machine components occurred in Georgia, casting doubt on the surprise defeat of the state’s governor and U.S. senator.

Georgia uses Diebold Election Systems machines, which have been the subject of intense criticism by computer experts nationwide. Heller said the Sequoia machines are more reliable.

Heller ed Sequoia machines after the Nevada Gaming Control Board analyzed machines from both companies for security vulnerabilities and declared Sequoia’s to be more secure.

Heller acknowledged that federal certification is vital to the integrity of an election.

“But so is the paper back up,” he said. “That is very critical to the election.”

Washoe County’s Voter Registrar Dan Burk said he is confident Heller’s inspection plan for the printers will ensure the elections results are accurate.

He is more worried about the fact the printers will not be delivered until August, only days before early voting is scheduled to begin. That time frame will not give counties enough time to train on the new machines and test each printer to ensure it is working properly.

Inadequate training could result in an election night mistake that could leave the nation waiting for Nevada to determine who becomes president, Burk said.

Because of President Bush’s narrow win in Nevada in 2000, the Silver State has been pegged as a swing state for this year’s presidential election. National attention likely will be focused on Nevada’s election results.

“The first time you do something there are always some setbacks,” he said. “And we don’t even have a minor election first to test out the systems. We’re going straight to a statewide election in a year with a presidential race.”

Heller said the only thing poll workers will have to do is plug and unplug the machine, and Sequoia representatives will be in each county to help tabulate the votes.

Heller said if Sequoia fails to provide the printers in time, then he will require counties to use optical scan machines, which Washoe County currently uses.

But on such a tight time frame, Burk said he would not have time to print the ballots for the optical scan system. The fallback plan also would require clerks in the seven Nevada counties that now use punch-card ballots to train on both systems.

Heller de-certified punch-card ballots because of the problems in Florida.

Clerks also won’t have time to teach voters how to use the new machines, which could result in long waiting times at the polls, he said.

“We do not know what to tell the voters when they go to vote what piece of equipment they’ll be voting on,” Glover said.