New election equipment brings new problems

By: Lauren Hutton for the Conroe Courier
June 30, 2004

LAKE CONROE Dan Wallach, a Rice University Department of Computer Science assistant professor, is a known skeptic of Direct Recording Electronic voting systems, or DREs.

"A machine running software of this size and complexity will always have bugs," he said.

One of many guest speakers at a statewide conference Wednesday at the Del Lago Resort and Conference Center, Wallach spoke to a room filled with hundreds of county election officials trying to prepare for approaching federal election mandates.

The Help America Vote Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in October 2002, requires each state to have at least one DRE per polling place by 2006.

But unlike Wallach, David Beirne, the Harris County Clerk's director of public affairs, said he believes in the new machines that have replaced all previous voting methods in Harris County.

"We've had no problems and feel comfortable with the technology," he said. "We always have two sets of equipment in case of failure."

Harris county purchased $25 million worth of eSlate voting machines in 2001 for the county's nearly 1.9 million registered voters.

But the eSlate machine, which uses a dial rather than touch screen technology, does not leave an automatic paper trail, which worries Wallach.

"Paper is good because it says what you (the voter) wants," he said, adding that the paper ballots could always be used for recounting purposes.

Beirne, however, said the eSlate machines could make a print out if a recount is necessary.

For Montgomery County, the federal act means taxpayers will fund, in part, at least 85 machines that start at an estimated $3,000 a piece to use with the current optical scan technology that reads penciled in bubbles.

The county should receive some funding from the state and federal government as the act came with $3.9 billion in possible funding for all states.

In Texas, 30 percent will stay at the state level and the rest will be allocated to the states 254 counties.

The counties with punch card and lever-operated systems will have top priority.

A nine-member, bipartisan committee will make a recommendation to the Montgomery County Commissioners Court this fall on what machines to purchase.