Carlos Guerra: Is it wise to gamble with the integrity of our elections?

Web Posted: 11/07/2004 12:00 AM CST

San Antonio Express-News

After a firestorm of voter suppression charges and election results contests in Florida paralyzed the nation for weeks in 2000, leaders in both parties vowed never to let it happen again.

But when it came to changing how politicos are picked, they didn't rush to the task. It wasn't until 2002 that Congress passed the Help America Vote Act and set up the bipartisan Elections Assistance Commission to establish voting systems standards.

The act offered states $3.5 billion to modernize voting systems if they would adopt reforms to ensure that all votes were counted and provisional ballots were provided so eligible voters wouldn't be disenfranchised.

But after the commissioners were named, the Iraq invasion put the reforms on hold. So, instead of going to work in March 2003, the commissioners weren't confirmed until December 2003. By then, the $10 million administrative budget had been cut to $1.8 million.

Eleven months before the election ? and with no new standards in place ? the agency started sending cash to the states.

When the election process kicked off, about all EAC could show off were polling place signs informing voters of their right to a provisional ballot and thousands of brand-new voting machines.

As voting started, reports surfaced of electronic voting machines malfunctioning, or showing on review of a ballot, picks different from those made by the voter.

Things got worse after the election. In one Ohio precinct where 638 people voted, the tally was reported as 260 for Kerry and 4,258 for President Bush. In a Michigan county with 79,000 registered voters, officials found that their system would count only 300 votes per precinct, or 22,200 votes. A North Carolina county reported 11,283 more votes than were cast, and one Florida county's software was found to be subtracting, instead of adding, votes after 32,000 were recorded.

In all of these states, "fixes" were made, but none of their voting machines had created voter-verifiable paper trails to reconstruct the votes indisputably.

Ray Mart?nez, who until becoming an EAC commissioner was an Austin attorney, says that time constraints limited the EAC's work. Still, he's happy that provisional voting is now offered nationally, because in 17 states prior to the act, if people's names were mistakenly left off the voter rolls, they lost their vote, period.

But he allowed that more work may be needed, such as creating uniform rules about which provisional votes are actually counted, a distinction now left to each state.

He also addressed the issue of providing an auditable paper trail for electronic voting machines.

"Every jurisdiction provides what works best for them and the majority did not provide a paper trail, but they have their own ways to secure their systems," he said by phone from Cleveland, where he was monitoring the election.

"On the other hand, the state of Nevada decided that they feel best if they provide their (electronic voting) machines with a voter-verified paper ballot. They did that in September with their primaries and it was successful and they have implemented that system throughout the state."

Why only Nevada would demand such a trail from voting machine vendors is unclear. But it may be that since that state regulates hundreds of thousands of computerized slot machines, its officials know computers can go haywire.

And they understand well that even the appearance of unfairness can be disastrous for business.