Election upgrade urgency

The frustration with tactics that could halt the badly needed upgrade of voting equipment in counties that still have punch-card voting and optical scanners is understandable. Private citizens and election officials have been working for more than three years on election reform in this state. To date, we've heard nothing that would warrant conducting another general election with outmoded and troublesome equipment.

Among those citizens who are most concerned are Steve Skardon, executive director of the Palmetto Project, and Rusty DePass, former chairman of the State Election Commission. Mr. Skardon has been dealing with the state's election problems since 2001 when he was appointed by then-Gov. Jim Hodges to head an election process task force. For the past two years, Mr. Skardon and Mr. DePass have been among those working on a state plan to implement the federal Help America Vote Act and more recently have co-chaired a citizens advisory committee. Both believe it is vital to move ahead with the voting equipment upgrade as soon as possible, and both are adamantly opposed to a new drumbeat for so-called voter receipts.

The Help America Vote Act is an outgrowth of the punch-card voting debacle in Florida and provides millions of dollars in federal funds for new voting equipment. South Carolina stands to lose $2.2 million of its total $46 million federal allocation if it doesn't eliminate punch-card voting still used in 11 of the 46 counties by the November general election.

A $37 million contract just awarded would give all the counties in the state new electronic voting equipment by 2006. Some 50 percent of the counties now have some form of electronic voting. If the state moves ahead now, some 89 percent of the counties would vote electronically in November.

The planned upgrade came under attack several months ago as a result of complaints about the award of the voting machine contract. After the decision to re-bid, a second group of citizen evaluators worked with the state procurement office. The same vendor won the contract again this week.

But some contend the state shouldn't go forward until after a S.C. Law Enforcement Division investigation of some of the complaints involving the first contract requested by two state senators. The chairman of the State Election Commission has described the ethics questions raised in connection with that contract as a "reckless and meritless 'shoot the messenger strategy.' "

If that weren't enough, officials have found themselves having to defend the type of electronic equipment ed, even though it does contain the kind of "paper trail" needed for election recounts. The insistence by some on actual "voter receipts" buys into a wrong-headed concept that actually could result in widespread vote-selling. This time, Attorney General Henry McMaster has been asked to determine if receipts are required by the new federal law. Mr. DePass contends in a letter to the attorney general that they emphatically are not. Further, he described the receipt as "an invitation to fraud as documentation for a payoff."

In a press release, the Election Commission noted that opponents include advocates for the disabled, especially the blind/visually impaired. Their concerns involve ballot secrecy. According to the commission, the use of such machines in California has resulted in ballot printer jams and "confusion on what to do with receipts not taken by the voter."

Those who don't appreciate the urgency of getting rid of paper-based systems, such as punch cards and optical scanners, should talk to Mr. Skardon. Local election officials have told him of instances where the paper ballots have absorbed so much moisture they've had to dry them out with hair-dryers or, in at least one instance, in a microwave, before they would go through the scanners. Such problems are why the federal government is using million dollar carrots to get such paper-based systems replaced this year. This is an instance where time truly is of the essence.