Voting machine inspection weak
Counties will have to replace machines that don't meet guidelines
Sunday, June 27, 2004
MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON - Alabama does not inspect its voting machines as closely as some other states, an omission an electronic voting expert said could increase the chances of an inaccurate count on election day.

While other states have technical experts scrutinize and test the machines against their state's specific balloting needs, Alabama law allows officials to defer to an independent lab that tests all brands of electronic voting machines for conformity to national standards.

Intense, state-level certification is one of four layers of tests experts recommend, and missing any one of the layers is unwise, said Michael Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and longtime expert in electronic voting. He told Congress last week that the national system to guard against technical glitches or fraud is weak and some states, like Alabama, have even weaker systems.

"We are less safe in 2004 than we were 20 years ago and possibly less safe than we were in 2000," Shamos said.

A 2-year-old federal law to upgrade the nation's ballot boxes is reshaping how states and counties decide which equipment to buy and causing vendors to scramble to keep up with the new requirements. The law was inspired by the Florida election controversy in 2000. While Alabama didn't have any of the punch-card ballots that caused problems in that presidential race, there is talk in Montgomery of eliminating the hodgepodge of voting machines used in the 67 counties and ordering a uniform system.

For now, Alabama is reviewing the equipment of several vendors, but not to the level Shamos recommends.

In her 17 months in office, Alabama Secretary of State Nancy Worley said, the state's electronic voting committee - composed of five elected officials or their appointees - has met once. Its main task was to decide whether two machines on display complied with the federal Help America Vote Act. Two key provisions require machines to provide a paper trail of votes and to be accessible by disabled voters. One did, and one didn't.

"We were very thorough that day," Worley said.

But Shamos said a state should use its own panel of experts in computer science and election laws - not politicians or their appointees - to put the machines through the paces of an election day. Because every state has different ballot requirements, accepting the word of a national technical laboratory or another state might not be adequate, he said.

For example, some states forbid straight-ticket voting; Alabama law allows it in general elections. Machines in Alabama also must allow for write-in candidates and, in primary elections, be capable of tallying votes from ballots cast in primaries for different political parties.

Worley said electronic voting machines are all first approved by the Independent Testing Authorities, a handful of private labs that give their seal of approval for technical competence.

Vendors, states and local election officials are supposed to supplement the national certification with additional tests for reliability, accuracy and security, according to a panel of experts that testified last week in Congress.

"Trust but verify," said Carolyn Coggins, director of the ITA services at SysTest Labs in Colorado.

Still, every election season a few machines fail.

"Because these machines have already been tested and certified against Federal Election Commission standards, these incidents have raised questions about the reliability of the testing process, the credibility of standards against which the machines are tested and the laboratories that carry out the tests," said U.S. Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Science Committee's environment, technology and standards subcommittee.

State law allows up to three experts in data processing, mechanical engineering and public administration to be hired to assist with the state certification. But Worley said she was told that option is costly and hasn't been done in recent years.

Instead, Alabama's five-member electronic voting committee - Worley, Attorney General Troy King, a probate judge and two state legislators - is doing the work. Worley said that, by this fall, counties will have a list of approved machines from which to choose. Voters in the November general election will be unaffected, but counties will have to change any machines that don't measure up by Jan. 1.

In 65 of Alabama's 67 counties, voters use some version of the optical scanning system. Using a pencil or marker, voters fill in an arrow or a circle near the candidate of their choice and the machine reads the votes. Worley said the scanners comply with the tougher federal laws' requirement for a paper auditing trail. But special voting machines will be added to accommodate voters with disabilities.

Two of the more populous counties, however, use direct recording electronic systems, which will not meet the federal regulations without modification. In Montgomery and Mobile counties, voters push buttons by the candidates of their choice, and there is no paper record of each vote.

Mobile County needs the state to finish its list of acceptable machines "like, yesterday," said Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis.

"We want to be aware of what's out there but we will also wait and see what comes from the secretary of state's office," said Montgomery County Probate Judge Reese McKinney Jr.

While each county has been free to pick its own vendor and machine from the state list of approved vendors, there is talk of using a uniform, statewide system.

"There is a strong possibility we could go to a statewide system, but that is certainly not in concrete," Worley said.

Alabama's two types of voting machines are among the most popular in the U.S. About 45 percent of all counties nationally use some version of the optical scanner and another 22 percent use the electronic systems with touch screens or buttons, according to Election Data Services Inc. The remaining counties use punch cards, paper, levers or a mix of all of the above.