Touch-screen voting in Lee passes early test

By CHARLIE WHITEHEAD  in Naples Daily News   August 13, 2004

Every sample vote that was entered on Lee County touch screens Thursday was tallied properly.

As new Florida Division of Elections Director Dawn Roberts looked on, local election officials tested 78 ballots and 21 of the more than 1,000 voting machines that will be in use in the Aug. 31 primary election.

The canvassing board certified every one of the machines, as County Commissioners John Albion and Bob Janes and County Judge James Adams signed off.

Roberts said the Lee testing was the first she'd observed. She was headed to Broward County to observe testing there today.

"I wanted to learn all I could myself," said Roberts.

Roberts said her visits are also aimed at increasing voter confidence in the voting system.

That'll take some doing. Party officials and other observers followed every step of the four-hour testing, and Democratic Committeeman Bob Geltner had lots of questions.

Democrats have pushed for verifiable paper ballots, something they won't get this year.

"It's really like religion," Geltner said. "In the end you just have to have faith."

Dexter Bellamy said he will have his verifiable ballot because he's voting absentee.

"I'm urging everyone to," he said. "You get a paper trail if you do it that way."

Lee Elections Supervisor Sharon Harrington said a verifiable paper ballot would look much like the 3-foot tapes printed during testing. Each precinct will produce one of those tapes, and it will be posted on the polling place door after the polls close.

Geltner expressed fears about the accuracy of the machines and about verifying votes, but Harrington said that even four years ago the problems were overblown.

"If you look back at 2000, what you really see is not equipment errors but voter errors," she said.

Geltner was not assured.

"I can go in and buy gum and get a receipt," he said. "But I can't get one when I vote."