July 29, 2004

Officials defend e-voting

By Shea Andersen
Tribune Reporter

New Mexico's electronic voting machines are safe, no matter what you hear on the radio, according to Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera.

Today Herrera and New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron lashed out against radio ads sponsored by a national voting-rights group that suggest that electronic voting machines are inaccurate and unreliable.

"We have never experienced any election in which all votes have not been counted," Herrera said today.

The ads, sponsored by True Majority of Burlington, Vt., suggest that because electronic voting machines don't leave a paper trail, "there's no way to make sure that everyone's vote is counted."

"The truth is, your vote might disappear electronically and you won't even know it," reads a transcript of the ad provided by Herrera's office.

The ads have been running on KMGA-FM (95.5). True Majority was founded by Ben Cohen, one of the co-founders of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.

Herrera, who is named in the ad, called it "misleading and confusing."

"I am confident that, with state election laws in place, that checks and balances for each voting machine are in place," Herrera said.

Bernalillo County has been using some form of electronic voting machine since 1984, Herrera said.

Vigil-Giron said New Mexico does not use Diebold Inc.'s electronic voting machines, which have caused problems in other states.

Because the Diebold systems transmit voting results electronically over the Internet, Vigil-Giron said, state law prohibits their use. Instead, New Mexico uses machines made by four companies whose results must be tabulated at each machine by trained staff.

"Our systems we use in the state of New Mexico are stand-alone systems," Vigil-Giron said. "We can't even look at their (Diebold) machines."

Anyone who is uncomfortable with the prospect of voting on an electronic machine should request an absentee ballot and vote that way, Vigil-Giron said.

"Vote on a paper ballot. Just vote," Vigil-Giron said.

However, the history of voting by machine isn't without bumps.

In 2002, Bernalillo County commissioners delayed certifying election results after a 12,000-vote discrepancy was discovered in election totals. Sequoia Voting Systems, which supplied the machines used in early voting, blamed a software problem, but the outcomes of local races weren't affected. The company fixed the problem, and commissioners later certified the results.

Concerns about the accuracy of electronic voting machines have led some New Mexico groups to demand a paper receipt for each vote cast on the machines.