Critics: State’s e-voting touch and go
County defends machines despite push to mail ballots

By Darrell Smith
The Desert Sun  October 7th, 2004
COACHELLA VALLEY Voting rights activists are urging voters in Riverside and San Bernardino counties to cast absentee ballots in the Nov. 2 election, bypassing touch-screen voting machines they say are risky and unreliable.

The California Voter Foundation targeted Riverside, San Bernardino and eight other counties that use the electronic voting machines.

They say voters should not risk their ballots on machines that cannot be audited, have no verifiable paper record of their vote and could be susceptible to security breaches.

"Voters who do not want to entrust their ballots to risky, inauditable technology have a choice," Kim Alexander of the Davis-based California Voter Foundation said in a prepared statement. "They can reject the paperless touch- screen system and instead vote absentee using a paper ballot."

Together the 10 counties that utilize e-voting include some of California’s largest and about 30 percent of the state’s electorate.

Nearly 6.5 million people 43 percent of the state’s registered voters were able to use the devices in the March 2 election, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Enough paper ballots for 25 percent of expected Riverside County voters about 146,000 ballots will be available at the polls Nov. 2, said Riverside County registrar of voters Barbara Dunmore.

The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 26.

Riverside County, with more than 4,000 e-voting machines, was first in the nation to use the devices in the 2000 election and officials here have hailed the touch screens for their cost savings and ease of use.

"We have had 29 successful elections (using touch screens) and we think this will be our 30th," Dunmore said.

Though electronic systems like Riverside County’s have been generally criticized, she maintains that voter sentiment in the county remains firmly behind the machines.

In Orange County, another e-voting county targeted by the California Voter Foundation, elections officials say their machines have passed muster, withstanding random tests by state elections officials in March and their own logic and accuracy tests.

Officials also perform a 1 percent manual recount, said Brett Rowley, a legislative analyst for Orange County’s registrar of voters.

"We believe there is no reason to fear the electronic voting system. It is completely secure," Rowley said.

But Riverside County e-voting critics dismiss that and insist that absentee ballots are the best way to ensure votes are counted.

Jeremiah Akin, a Riverside activist who has been heavily critical of the e-voting systems, is asking voters to go a step further by bringing ballots with them to the polling place, or hand-deliver them to the registrar’s office.

"I’m hoping that everything goes smoothly," Akin said of the Nov. 2 election. "Hopefully, the registrar will listen to voters’ input so that the election will be as transparent as possible."

Controversy has dogged e-voting all year in Riverside County, in California and in states from Nevada to Maryland to Ohio and Florida, the state whose notorious problems in the 2000 election led other states to embrace electronic voting technology.

Security concerns with the touch screens and other electronic systems surfaced in Riverside and 13 other California counties during the March primary.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley called a series of hearings soon after the primary to investigate the problems and later issued a stinging report detailing the problems. On April 30, Shelley ordered the e-systems shut down until they and elections workers met tough security and training standards.

Riverside County fought the moratorium, but worked out a deal with Shelley’s office in July to allow the county to use the machines in November provided that voters also had the option of using paper ballots at the polls.

And last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation requiring voter-verified paper records back up electronically cast votes in all counties statewide by the 2006 primary election.

Moreover, the bill states that county registrars cannot certify any new machines without verifiable paper records after Jan. 1.