Voting rule could cost county $88,000

by Steven T. Dennis for the Maryland Gazette
Aug. 11, 2004  
ANNAPOLIS A new voting rule approved Tuesday that is intended to provide the appearance of tighter voting security could result in lengthy delays in getting results on election night or in added costs for county governments.

The State Board of Elections voted to require unofficial voting results either to be transmitted electronically directly from voting rooms or driven in by poll workers. The board banned having the results sent electronically from any other room, such as a school office.

Nancy H. Dacek, president of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, opposed the rule, saying that 174 of the county's precincts do not have phone lines in the voting room. Upgrading the rooms with phone lines would cost $88,000, she said. And the alternative driving the results in would lead to hours of delays in posting election results, Dacek said.

In the 2002 primary in Montgomery County, results were delayed by hours, and final unofficial results were not posted until about 2 a.m.

But the State Board of Elections members argued that security or at least the appearance of security was more important, even though the procedure is simply for the unofficial results.

The move came as advocates suing to decertify the state's Diebold electronic voting machines appealed to have the state's Court of Appeals take the case. Attorneys for paper ballot activist Linda Schade and the other plaintiffs argued that the Circuit Court and the state have been dragging their feet so long that it would have the same effect as rejecting their case because it would be too late to implement a remedy, such as using optical-scan paper ballots.

Illegal voters purged

The state board also asked its staff to investigate the possibilities for purging noncitizens from the voter rolls.

It is unclear how many noncitizens are on the rolls or if there are any databases that could be cross-checked with the state's rolls. The issue came to light after a juror was found to be a noncitizen in a Howard County murder case. Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Dist. 31) of Glen Burnie wrote to the state Board of Elections and to the Motor Vehicle Administration seeking to ensure that noncitizens not be included on voter rolls.

"I think that anyone that votes illegally is impugning everyone else's vote," said Joan Beck, a member of the state board.

One issue is that proof of citizenship is not required by the Motor Vehicle Administration, which under federal law offers to register drivers to vote when they get their licenses. The drivers must check a box saying that they are a citizen, under penalty of perjury.

Robert J. Antonetti Sr., a recently retired former elections administrator for Howard and Prince George's counties, said that he had referred numerous cases of suspected voter fraud over the past 30 years to the state prosecutor, but nothing ever happened.