Electronic voting appears to gain fresh credibility in California

JIM WASSERMAN

Associated Press   03 November 2004

LOS ANGELES - Electronic voting appeared to regain some credibility in California on Election Day and could be bound for wider use in the future - if the results stand.

Election officials and other observers said California's experience with touch screen machines largely mirrored that of the nation, where scattered problems were reported but apparently fell short of the miscounts and tampering that had been feared.

The California secretary of state's office called the performance of the technology reassuring but declined to draw any conclusions until returns and monitoring were analyzed.

"The secretary is not prepared to say anything more than 'good thing we got through the election and good thing we didn't have any problems,'" said Caren Daniels-Meade, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

The voting machines were used in areas with nearly a third of the state's 16.5 million registered voters.

In the March primary, many polls in San Diego County didn't open on time because of computer malfunctions. Machines failed in Alameda County after some equipment was shipped without fully charged batteries. In Orange County, malfunctions caused thousands of people to use the wrong ballot.

After the mishaps, Shelley put 10 counties with electronic voting through a grueling array of extra security, prompting many disgruntled registrars to say he was overstepping his authority.

Shelley also required counties to offer paper ballots to those who didn't trust computer voting. His office said it couldn't immediately determine how many people asked for the ballots on Tuesday.

By the 2006 primary, voting machines used in California must print a simultaneous paper record of votes.

Election officials around the state reported only scattered computer malfunctions Tuesday and said most were quickly fixed.

In Berkeley, a handful of machines shut down when batteries drained but returned to operation when properly plugged into power supplies. Voters in Upland and Redlands also reported power failures that led some to ask for paper ballots.

Computers in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach had similar outages, while problems in Riverside County caused a delay of at least an hour in counting votes.

"There were problems here and there, but I think it does demonstrate that hopefully, in a tight, close election with a large turnout, electronic voting technologies can be implemented and widely used," said Michael Alvarez, a political science professor at Caltech and co-author of the book "Point, Click and Vote: the Future of Internet Voting."

Many California voters were pleased with the machines.

In Palm Desert, Virginia Richmond, 78, told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, "It was my first time to try the electronic vote and it was wonderful. It went by quick, and they let you review it."

A number of counties in the state are expected to turn to electronic systems in the coming years by tapping into a $3.9 billion federal fund for modernizing elections.

Alvarez said Tuesday's election would help shape those systems.

"It gives us a a lot of useful data, which we can use to examine the pros and cons of electronic voting," he said. "That's what's been missing from the debate."