Voting Technology

by Susan Reefer
March, 2004
“Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them,” the French critic and poet Paul Valery once said.

There’s another old saying, this from the world of politics: “Technology knows no ideology.” But recent events in the world of voting technology may prove that truism to be untrue.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in late 2002, sought to create order from the chaos that was the 2000 Presidential vote count, and to create accountability in the aftermath of the recount debacle. Among other things, the federal law set aside significant funds for states and localities to use in voting technology s.

And voting technology s couldn’t help but be a good thing, right? After all, in New York City, voters are still using the same little switches and levers that were used to elect John F. Kennedy President. The machines are notorious for breaking down and the parts and services to repair them are all but obsolete. The need to improve the current system couldn’t have been more obvious.

With the federal money waiting to be spent and the need more than apparent and the mandate for change glowing in bi-partisan neon brights, all that remained for New York City was to decide which technology would best fulfill her needs.

It sounded easy enough. Here in New York City, a task force was formed to evaluate the changes that needed to be made, while the nation’s top providers of voting machines and software started racking up frequent flier miles and hotel points as they sought to compete for the single biggest prize in this particular funded mandate.

But there were problems. Here in New York, the process of reviewing the HAVA and its implications was seen by some critics as short-lived and inconclusive, as I and others have written about on Gotham Gazette. (See the January, 2004, voting page and Helping New Yorkers Vote" by Jillian Matundan). And in other parts of the country, the latest upgrades in voting technology were falling quite a bit short of the promised “fool proof” status (it was unclear whether the fools in question were the voters using the technology or the bureaucrats who bought it).

There were examples of failures in the newest voting technology starting in the 2001 elections, and the most recent example occurred on Super Tuesday earlier this month. In California, there were problems with voting technology that accomplished the deeply difficult feat of being both more serious than hanging chads, and also funnier.

The computers that were purchased with the chief end of collecting and counting votes on Election Day, chose that particular day to fail to do the one thing they were supposed to do. According to the Associated Press, San Diego county voters were initially unable to vote in approximately 40 percent of the county’s precincts, when computer screens showed not the expected voting-system software, but a Windows operating system. And while anti-Microsoft conspiracy theorists might have a great deal to say on the matter, initial reports would seem to indicate a simple power failure may have been to blame. A report issued by the San Diego county’s Chief Administrative office made this observation: “At a few locations, voters actually assisted poll workers in maneuvering through the start up process to reach the login screen.”

This failure was especially significant because the company that made the software in question, Diebold Election Systems, is a leading provider of the ATM-style voting machines that are fast becoming the new trend. And they are among the companies vying for the New York City market. And the company’s CEO is an active Republican fundraiser. And they have been accused of misrepresenting the accuracy of their own results in the California recall election held last year.

All of this is troubling enough, without even going into the on-going concerns that some voting machines may actually tend to benefit major parties and candidates, since small touch screen machines may promote those names at the top of New York’s typically long, many-tiered ballot.

All of which is to say, the idea that political technology is ideologically neutral may finally have become archaic.

In the 2004 elections, New York state has received a federal waiver to allow it to continue to utilize the old, green metal, many-levered, intricately calibrated, lovingly maintained lever machines. I for one will feel a sense of sadness when they go, if only because they represent a simpler time, at least in some ways.

They will, of course, be replaced. Whether or not they can be improved upon is a question that remains.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.