Stuart News editorial: Where's the patch?

Voting machines' manufacturer should correct flaw now

June 20, 2004

The manufacturer of the touch-screen voting machines used in Martin and nine other Florida counties has known since November 2002 that its machines had a flaw that made it difficult, if not impossible, to accurately audit an election. The problem didn't get a lot of attention until press reports began appearing in May, according to a June 16 article in The Miami Herald.

The voting machine manufacturer, Electronic Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., says it has a patch — or, a fix — for the software but it hasn't been installed yet. In fact, it can't be installed until the state certifies it. And no certification has been issued because the company doesn't want to follow the testing procedures required by the state and is trying to negotiate a new test.

Elections officials say the flaw doesn't affect the ability of the machines to tally and report the vote. "This has nothing to do with the counting of the vote," said Martin County Supervisor of Elections Peggy Robbins. "It only affects a redo of the vote." She said state regulations don't allow a recount of electronic votes, but absentee ballots can be recounted.

"On election night, each machine is checked," Robbins said, "and before each election we have a public test of the machines." Robbins said she is confident of a clean vote in Martin County.

Robbins' comments are comforting, but not entirely reassuring because she admits having no control over the programming of the machines to handle the vote tally on Election Day. Coupled with that is the manufacturer's admission that its machines are not without flaws — an admission that came after an almost two-year delay. No wonder concerns abound.

Ballot-box stuffing is as old as elections, and no nation has been immune from the practice, although the United States, and particularly Florida, has made strides in preventing it or at least detecting it. Now it seems that the public is being asked to trust machines implicitly, and not ask who programmed them, nor that they reconstruct an election to prove the validity of the count. The day may have arrived in which it is impossible to verify whether the ballot box has been stuffed beforehand.

State officials need to explain why the flaw in the machines hasn't been corrected, and why the company — which has made millions off of the people of nine counties — has not been made to rectify the problem.

More importantly, the issue increases the need for the courts to speedily review a suit demanding a paper trail for touch-screen machines. After the last presidential election, many people were left believing the election had been stolen through such shenanigans as manipulation of the ballot and voter rolls. Absent solid, verifiable assurances that the new touch-screen machines are impartial and trustworthy, those same feelings may resurface in the upcoming election.

Some may see such concerns as unnecessarily alarmist, but that view is countered by the non-partisan League of Women Voters, which last week withdrew its support of electronic voting and called for a paper trail in all elections.