Flaws suggest need for standards

By LYNN BONNER, Staff Writer

A lesson from this month's election: The equipment matters. And understanding how it works is essential.

Though few things are as vital to a smooth election as reliable voting equipment, state elections officials leave local governments on their own in ing and testing machines, referring them to state laws, a list of approved machines, and a rule book.

"All it really says is that we test equipment," said Kathie Chastain Cooper, director of the Forsyth County elections office. "Maybe it should be a little more detailed than that."

The counties have more than a dozen machine varieties to choose from, and if you count the different software upgrades and patches they install, the list of unique systems gets even longer.

State officials want less variety, and they're looking forward to a day when they are more involved in tracking voting machine tests, upgrades and storage.

Forsyth is testing machines as part of its plan to replace its punch-card system, in which voters poke holes in paper to indicate their choices; the system's flaws were exposed in great detail in 2000 during the presidential wrangle in Florida.

Under state law, punch cards and lever voting should be extinct in North Carolina by January 2006. The federal government has given money to states to help buy new equipment and get rid of the old.

But counties still using outmoded equipment are stuck in a bureaucratic netherworld. Federal guidelines for new voting machines are nearly a year late and might not be issued for another five months or more. Meanwhile, state officials aren't adding any of the latest equipment to their approved list.

"We wanted the very latest, up-to-date system," Forsyth's Cooper said. "I'm not sure we're going to be able to meet the deadline."

Eight other counties that use punch cards or levers are in the same situation.

Machine uniformity

Gary Bartlett, the state elections director, doesn't want counties to spend the $26 million in federal funds for new machines until the federal standards are handed down.

While they wait, Bartlett is focusing on another goal: bringing some uniformity to state voting.

Bartlett wants to cut dozens of machine types to a few, and he wants more say in how counties upgrade their electronics. That way, state officials would have a better chance of understanding the limitations of each county's voting system.

"It would be better for everybody involved if it were more centralized," he said.

Last year, a group of state and local elections officials recommended that the state establish a clearinghouse of problems machine-makers find with their systems, and how to resolve them. The group also suggested the State Board of Elections review purchase and service contracts.

As it is, counties depend on the machine-makers for advice and training.

When the federal guidelines come out, Bartlett hopes they will boost the state's efforts to weed out some of the systems in use. The state will be able to tell counties to stop using certain systems, and will give them four years to change.

Greater uniformity would allow state officials to oversee machine improvements, he said, and offer the counties the benefit of bulk purchasing.

"Every county that has the same equipment would have the same software and hardware," he said. "No matter how large or small, they'll get the same price."

Proactive states

Some local elections officials like the ideas. But Patrice Roesler, a lobbyist for the state Association of County Commissioners, said the state should help counties with money to buy new equipment if they're going to be forced to change on short notice.

"Something like that would be a major infrastructure purchase for the counties," she said. "If it's something he [Bartlett] sees an immediate need for, we'd have to have help."

Some states already have jumped in to take a more hands-on approach. Georgia and Maryland have uniform voting equipment, with requirements for how it's tested each time it's upgraded, said Glenn Newkirk, president of InfoSENTRY Services Inc., a Raleigh company that works for state and local governments updating election technology.

"I tend to support pretty strongly an active role by the state government in developing standards in cooperation with counties," he said.

That doesn't mean that all counties need to use the same machines, he said, but "it's a good idea for the state to develop good, solid standards that the counties have to meet."

Backup trail

The problems that arose in North Carolina's 2004 election, however, involved the newer voting methods. Most of the lost votes and miscounts occurred in counties with modern electronic systems although in some cases, human error rather than equipment was to blame.

The stumbles raise questions about election accuracy and add fuel to criticism of paperless voting.

"There's got to be a backup," said Joyce McCloy of Winston-Salem, state coordinator for the N.C. Coalition for Verifiable Voting. She thinks voters should receive printed copies of their completed ballots before leaving their polling places.

"It's the only true audit trail for voting," she said.

Two Orange County legislators were appointed Friday to help lead a special commission to study paper backup for computerized voting.

An error in Carteret County, in which more than 4,400 electronic ballots were lost, brings new urgency to the committee's work.

Despite her county's elections nightmare, M. Sue Verdon, a member of the Carteret elections board, said she likes the touch screens. "I've seen the gamut of voting equipment," Verdon said. "It's the easiest thing I've ever done."