Touch-screen company balks at proposal for optical scanners

By Mary McLachlin

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, November 15, 2004

WEST PALM BEACH ? Arthur Anderson startled a lot of people when he said Nov. 3 that he wanted to consider switching from touch-screen voting machines to optical scanners when he takes over as Palm Beach County's elections supervisor in six weeks.

Not a good idea, says Sequoia Voting Systems, the company that provided the 2-year-old, $14.4 million touch-screen system and plans to supply $3.2 million worth of printers for it.
 Sequoia also sells optical-scan voting systems, but it wouldn't trade the touch-screen equipment for a new scanner system, an official said last week.

"While we are always happy to sell new equipment to our customers, we think that would not be in the best interest of the county at this time," said Alfie Charles, vice president of business development for Sequoia.

Anderson's campaign against incumbent Theresa LePore was built on the premise of reform, including a paper trail of ballots or ballot receipts so voters could verify their choices and votes could be recounted in tight or disputed elections.

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, who directed the Anderson campaign and has sued in state and federal courts to try to enforce such a paper trail, has said optical scanners would be best for all Florida jurisdictions.

Fifteen counties use touch-screen machines, which produce summaries of the votes cast. The other 52 counties use varying forms of scanners, which electronically read paper ballots filled in by voters.

Palm Beach County considered optical-scan equipment when it scrapped its discredited punch-card system after the November 2000 election, but it decided on touch screens instead. County commissioners have approved the money for adding printers, once the state tests and certifies them.

"In our discussions with Dr. Anderson, he expressed support for the VeriVote printers Sequoia provided to the state of Nevada," Charles said in an e-mail to The Palm Beach Post. "The printers offer voters the opportunity to verify a paper record of their vote before their ballot is cast and can be added to the county's existing voting machines. We plan to submit the printers for state certification in Florida soon."

Charles called Palm Beach County's election reform effort "a model for the rest of the nation" and said the county should be proud of the voting system and the way voters have adapted to it.

Anderson said previously he had told Sequoia President Tracey Graham he "wanted to be able to pursue (his) options" and Graham had said the company could provide optical-scan equipment. Graham did not respond to requests for comment.

Options to be reviewed, Anderson says

Last week, Anderson said he had gotten "more positive than negative" reaction to putting the paper ballot issue back into play, but he added a caveat.

"Everything will be on hold until we can get a process to review the options, not just optical scanners but any other systems that would be viable for our purposes," he said. "As supervisor of elections, it's my responsibility to be in a continuous process of evaluation and appraisal."

Anderson, 63, was an education professor at Florida Atlantic University who served eight years on the Palm Beach County School Board. He takes over the elections office Jan. 4, and the first municipal elections start in February. He said he'd had no contact with the office since being an observer on Election Day but would try to schedule a meeting with LePore to discuss the transition.

Relations between the two have been frosty since the campaign, in which each accused the other of violating election laws or ethics rules. The day before the Aug. 31 election, Anderson said he was going to complain to the secretary of state's office that LePore failed to get all poll watchers certified on time.

LePore called the accusation "crap."

"I decided I didn't want to waste my time filing a complaint against her," Anderson said last week. "I just ped the idea altogether and decided we need to move forward."

Complaints filed against Anderson by LePore's campaign treasurer are pending before the Florida Elections Commission and the state Commission on Ethics. They say he misstated financial information on state report forms, including the amount of a $51,066 debt to the federal government for unpaid income taxes.

The tax lien had not been lifted last week, but Anderson said the tax debt had "all been taken care of" within the preceding two weeks. He refused to elaborate.

LePore said it would be "absurd" for a jurisdiction as big as Palm Beach County to consider dealing with the masses of paper involved in an optical-scan voting system, as Anderson proposed.

"When we were looking at touch-screens, we did a cost comparison with optical scanners," LePore said. "It's pay me now or pay me later."

A scanner system costs less up front, LePore said, but would end up costing more over 10 years, mostly because of the paper expense. Ballots require special paper and ink and cost 28 to 32 cents each, depending on the size and whether both sides are printed. Multilingual ballots, required in Florida, can double or triple the space required.

"It adds up," LePore said. "The storage costs, the costs of making sure every voter gets the right pages, carrying them to and from the polling places ? in a precinct with 2,000-3,000 voters, you could have 9,000 pieces of paper."

Printers on touch screens like scanners

Both types of voting systems have advantages and drawbacks, say members of the Cal Tech/MIT Voter Technology Project, which collects and analyzes voting data nationally. Touch screens worked reasonably well in the general election, and their performance can be improved, team members said.

By adding printers to touch screens, "you effectively have an optical-scanner system, because the paper is the official ballot," said Steve Ansolabehere of MIT.

But even a paper trail isn't sacrosanct. In Nevada, which used touch-screen machines with printers, one team member watched poll workers deal with a paper jam in a printer by opening the machine, cutting the vote-receipt tape with scissors, then taping it back together.

"It kind of defeats the purpose (of security) if you've got someone around with scissors," said Jonathan Katz, associate political science professor at Cal Tech.

Debating the security of one electronic system vs. another runs the risk of missing bigger problems in the election process, such as hiring more people to handle the burgeoning numbers of absentee ballots, improving registration and record-keeping and figuring out ways to help voters get to the right precinct, Katz said.