Ballot printout isn't cure-all, panel told

Voters want them, but experts say they won't guarantee accuracy

MARK JOHNSON   Charlotte Observer   14 December 2004

RALEIGH - The one change in voting machines that the public apparently wants more than any other a printout of their completed ballot would do nothing to ensure that vote is properly counted, elections and computer experts told a special legislative committee Monday.

"The voter who leaves the voting enclosure with a paper ballot in their hand is of no consequence as to whether it was counted as he cast it," Ed Pond, chairman of the Carteret County Board of Elections, told the committee.

"We've got to verify the ballot further downstream where the vote is counted, not where it's cast. That's an enormous difference."

A Carteret County voting machine malfunctioned and lost nearly 4,500 votes, the worst vote count mishap in the nation this year and one that has prompted a special re-vote in the coastal county to decide the race for state agriculture commissioner.

That blunder, along with glitches in other counties such as Mecklenburg, Gaston and Cleveland, led General Assembly leaders to create a special commission to examine and make recommendations on new voting machines.

State lawmakers and local officials on that committee said voters who have contacted them want a paper copy of their completed ballot more than anything else. Witnesses at the committee's first meeting on Monday, though, suggested or flat declared that a printout might reassure the voter but doesn't ensure the vote is counted properly when it is retrieved from the voting machine.

"It certainly won't be enough," said Rep. Verla Insko, an Orange County Democrat and co-chair of the committee, "and it may not be the most important thing."

Insko said the committee wants to shore up voters' confidence in the system but not with mechanics that provide only a perception of security.

North Carolina's 100 counties use five different voting systems, from touch-screen machines to punchcards. The committee's mission includes making recommendations on new voting machines for the entire state. Those changes hinge, in part, on new federal standards that are expected soon.

Providing a printout from an electronic machine doesn't solve the problems because, among other reasons, votes are secret, witnesses told the committee. A ballot can't be linked to a particular voter as it is counted.

Secondly, the voting machine may print out and record a ballot, but that data is transferred at least once, if not two or three times, between computers before the votes are tallied. A variety of problems can occur.

The machine in Carteret County, for example, flashed a message to voters that their votes had been cast, but it wasn't actually recording the votes.

A theme that ran through much of the testimony was for the state to assume greater control over voting. Elections now are run primarily at the county level. That reflects the state's history of deferring to local control, but it has led to the patchwork of incompatible systems that now exists.

"You cannot have this run the way it is," Pond told the committee.

The group also heard a Duke University computer scientist explain the range of security threats posed by any electronic voting system.

The committee reconvenes Monday and will view demonstrations of several new electronic voting machines.