N.C. weighs ballot model
In state, system to count votes varies

By CRAIG JARVIS, Staff Writer

Four years after the much-disputed presidential election recount in Florida, there are no technology standards in place to guarantee that fiasco won't be repeated.

As a result, North Carolina is no closer to an easy, electronic way for voters across the entire state to cast their ballots. The new goal: the 2006 election.

Congress passed a law two years ago giving states the responsibility to ensure federal elections run at the county level use reliable equipment and are more accessible to disadvantaged voters. But the advisory committee set up to develop those standards didn't meet until just this week.

In the meantime, the federal government has been giving millions of dollars to states to replace punch ballots and lever machines with electronic equipment. But that technology so far has not proved to be safe from failure or from potential security breaches.

Some states have rushed to buy new equipment that they don't know how to operate, which will inevitably break down and cause long lines and unhappy voters, Michael I. Shamos, a computer science professor and elections expert, told Congress last week.

That's not the case in North Carolina, which has put a moratorium on certifying any new voting equipment until technology concerns are resolved.

Nearly half of North Carolina counties use what are called direct record electronic equipment, with more than 7,000 machines in place. Most of the rest of the state uses the method familiar to Triangle voters, known as optical scan machines, which read lines that voters draw next to the candidates or issues they support.

Six counties still use the chad-producing punch cards made infamous in Florida. Four use lever booths, and three counties still use simple pencil and paper ballots.

Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections, says that despite a hodgepodge of new and obsolete machinery, North Carolina has strong safeguards in place, including an efficient system of handling disputed elections.

"We've never had a voting equipment problem that impacted the outcome of the election," Bartlett said.

Since the federal standards are at least a year away from completion, North Carolina will wait until next year before it allows counties to buy new electronic machines. All states have to meet the new standards by 2006, under the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

That law requires states to make sure voters with physical disabilities or who don't speak English can use voting equipment, and it requires a central database of registered voters in each state.

The state elections board has begun receiving what is scheduled to be about $60 million in federal money and $7 million in matching state money by the end of next year. Bartlett's office estimates it will cost about $80 million to provide new equipment statewide.

Electronic voting machines are currently certified as reliable by independent testers. But neither the testing authorities nor the private vendors will publicly disclose the process they use to test.

The failure of independently certified electronic equipment last year in California heightened concerns about the current technology. Groups have formed around the country to put the brakes on the push toward electronic voting.

"We're not saying people will deliberately hack the vote," said Winston-Salem resident Joyce McCloy of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting. "We're saying, probably a high school student could have built more secure software."

Those organized against electronic voting without national standards argue that the machines should generate a paper receipt that can be placed in a ballot box so voters can be certain their vote was recorded properly and that could be used in a recount.

But Bartlett said paper receipts raise the question of which is the official record, the paper or the electronic vote. Also, he said, paper receipts risk the concept of secret balloting and potentially could be used in vote-buying schemes.

Opponents also point to technology breakdowns not only in other states, but here in North Carolina.

In absentee, one-stop voting in Wake County in 2002, touch-screen computers being tested at two locations failed to count 436 votes. County elections officials frantically tracked down most of the advance voters and delivered ballots to them by hand, fax or Federal Express. Still, 78 people did not get their votes counted.

Cherie Poucher, director of the Wake County Board of Elections, said the current optical-scan equipment works well, so the county has the luxury of waiting until national standards are developed.

"We're not in the scramble right away," Poucher said. "I feel sorry for those who are."

In Vance County, Elections Director Faye M. Gill said there have never been any problems with the punch-card equipment that has been used there since the early 1980s.

"We've never had hanging chads or whatever you want to call them," Gill said. "People have teased me about them, but I've not had any problems."

There was a problem, however, in Watauga County in the 2000 general election with the same punch-card voting machines that caused the problems in Florida. A machine recount flipped the results of the county commissioners race, which prompted a manual recount.

Watauga was able to follow state guidelines which weren't in place in Florida that spelled out how the counters would determine the voters' intent when confronted with "hanging," "pregnant" or "dimpled" chads. Bartlett says the state system that was in place resolved the election without a legal fight.

Bartlett still has in his office the bowed gift box that the Watauga County elections director sent him containing all the punched-out chads from the recounted ballots.

"It shows the system works," he said.