The new voting systems are in
MERLINO TESTS NEW MACHINES

By HEIDI J. BERTOLINO  13 August 2004
SPECIAL TO THE PVT 
 Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino and interested viewers conducted an informal test Wednesday. The subject was the new voting machines to be used, for the first time in the nation's history and only in Nevada, during the 2004 election. The new voter machines, designed by Sequoia Voting Systems include a printer component attached to a touch-screen and are the first ever voter-verifiable machines with a paper audit trail.

The county has received 83 of the machines, of which 63 will be shipped to Pahrump for elections. Election personnel will undergo training up to Election Day to be certain that everyone clearly understands how the machine functions.

Merlino said that once everybody is familiar with the new system, the election process should be easier than how things were done in previous cycles. Only absentee ballots need to be tallied by hand and the machines can print verifiable reports of election results in just a few seconds. When polls close a grand total for each ballot question can be obtained in seconds, as well as data stating which machine the votes were derived from.

Prior to Wednesday's test the machine was turned on and it was verified with a report to show that no votes had been cast on the machine. The machines will tally total number of votes per machine, per election, per question and other data. During the test, fake ballots were registered in a manner similar to how they would be during an election.

The group, including county employee DanRa Boscovich, Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley and a representative from the Tonopah Times-Bonanza & Goldfield News, received activation cards that were entered into the machine to verify the person's precinct and applicable ballot questions. Each voted according to the sample cards by using the touch screen. The details were displayed for voter review before being printed on an adjacent scroll of paper. When the vote is validated by the voter and printed, it is entered into the system and the printed vote scrolls so it will be hidden from the next voter.

Throughout the demonstration details about how the system worked were answered by Merlino and Sequoia project specialist Paul Edelman. The representative said it was impossible to "tap" into the system as each machine stands alone and is not hooked to any network. Edelman also said results from the machines could not be obtained until the polls closed and a final total was pulled from the master computer.

The data provided to the master computer includes information regarding from which machine each vote was obtained, so if necessary the printable records can be audited.

The entire voting process took each of the participants less than two minutes to complete. The final results were plugged into a master computer for tally and the results of the quasi-poll were available in seconds.

In December 2003, Secretary of State Dean Heller announced his decision to decertify all punch-card voting machines, to purchase touch-screen voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems for all Nevada voters, and that those machines must include a voter-verifiable paper audit trail printer. In July 2004 Heller announced at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that the VeriVotea printer had completed state certification and federal qualifications for use in the 2004 elections.

Many election officials from across the nation have contacted Heller or Sequoia Voting Systems staff regarding their interest in observing this historic occasion in the technical advancement of voting. Demonstrations are expected in Las Vegas Wednesday as part of the statewide early voting program.