Diebold votes 'yes' for e-voting system

By Brice Wallace
Deseret Morning News   16 November 2004

      Using a touch screen to cast a ballot may seem like intimidating, futuristic technology, but a company hoping to land a contract for an electronic voting system for Utah has had the technology in use elsewhere for a few years.
      Moreover, the company is proud of its reliability, security, speed and flexibility.
      "Touch-screen voting technology has been used for several years in hundreds of elections without a single factual report of a security concern," Eric C. Evans, president and chief operating officer of Ohio-based Diebold, said Friday at a breakfast meeting of the Salt Lake Chamber.
      Diebold devices have been used for five years in Brazil, and statewide implementations have occurred in Georgia, Maryland, Arizona and Alaska. The Utah Voting Equipment Selection Committee is considering two bids for new electronic voting machines.
      "Some have urged Utah to consider using older technology, but we believe Utah should look to the future and adopt a system that is unparalleled in safety and accuracy," Evans said. "It's an investment designed to last for the next 20 years, so this is a big decision for Utah."
      Diebold Election Systems Inc. was a natural venture for Diebold, whose history features tons of technology, electronic security, ATM and "campus card" systems ? what Evans called "protecting transactions of value." It has more than 900 customers in 26 states, with about 20,000 precincts using touch-screen or optical-scan devices, and 100 Canadian customers.
      In Brazil, the company has more than 200,000 terminals in place to help the country's 109 million people during compulsory-voting elections. Results have been tallied in as little as four hours after the polls closed, he said.
      Georgia used more than 22,000 touch-screen terminals for the November 2002 election. "Georgia did a statewide implementation of Diebold voting equipment two years ago and since that time has run hundreds of error-free elections on our equipment," Evans said.
      And during the recent election, the equipment worked "extremely well" in both voting and tabulation phases, he added.
      "All of this occurred against the back of the biggest voter turnout in U.S. history and under the close scrutiny of computer scientists and political academics. The systems worked well, and much like the buildup to the Y2K situation a few years ago, the predicted meltdown did not occur," he said.
      The voting-technology business is controversial ? "much more controversial than we ever envisioned when we thought we could get into this business," Evans said.
      Still, he said, other technologies have troubles that e-voting alleviates or eliminates, including "overvoting," meaning voting for more than one candidate in a particular race, and "undervoting," or failing to count a cast vote or having a person not cast a vote because the ballot is confusing. E-voting equipment also can accommodate different languages easily, and voice guidance can help visually impaired people vote "completely unassisted for the first time," he said.
      "There are numerous horror stories about ballot boxes that get lost, lever machines that never get cleared," Evans said. "If you want to talk about horror stories and elections, you should really focus on some of the older technology."
      Diebold has been working to address lingering security concerns. It has added digital signatures and strengthened encryption. It also has developed paper audit trails, allowing voters to see printouts of their choices while in the polling place.
      LaVarr Webb, a political consultant and lobbyist, said the 2004 election was the first "where the tools of technology were really used effectively in political campaigns." He noted that online fund raising, e-mail campaigns and electronic phone-message delivery were among the successful tactics.
      "The Internet and e-mail and advanced technology applications really had an impact in the 2004 election, and I think they will really have a bigger impact in 2008," Webb said Friday. "We're seeing the beginning of that kind of activity as it relates to politics. They're very powerful tools now, electronic and Web-based tools."
      Evans, a native of Bear Lake County, Idaho, noted Diebold's Utah connections. The company, a Fortune 1,000 firm founded in 1859, has offices in Bountiful, West Valley City, Clearfield and Ivins, Washington County, employing 101 Utahns. Diebold acquired Bountiful -based TFE Technology this year, and its campus card system at Brigham Young University has more than 300,000 transactions weekly.