Electronic ballot safety is a concern for legislators
By Jared Strong
Iowa State Daily Staff Writer   11 February 2005

Fourteen counties using touch-screen voting machines have concerned Iowa lawmakers because of a perceived lack of security.

Sen. John Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, and other legislators have said the only way to ensure accuracy of votes cast on direct recording electronic machines is through the use of a verified paper audit trail, which allows voters to audit their ballots.

"There are two states right now who haven't decided the winners of a statewide election," said Kibbie, the co-president of the Iowa Senate.

"If Iowa ever gets into a voter contest where we have to recount the ballots and there are mistakes, we need a way of correcting the mistakes."

There is no federal mandate requiring the use of a paper trail.

"The way for us to fix that, in my opinion, is to pass a law that says we have to have a paper trail," Kibbie said.

On Jan. 20, Dawn Williams, Marshall County assistant auditor, spoke to the Senate State Government Committee to oppose a legislative mandate to require voter-verified paper trails.

"It's a low-technology, poor-procedure solution to address voters' concerns about voter integrity," Williams said. "I think the current logic and accuracy testing that county auditors are mandated to do, along with our physical security procedures, allow us to ensure the [direct recording machines] accurately reflect a voter's choice better than a [verified paper audit trail] does."

Direct recording machines are tested for accuracy before each election, and then are sealed to prevent tampering.

Once voters make their ions, a summary of their votes is displayed on the screen for confirmation.

Williams said the addition of a paper trail would simply be redundant, unnecessary and costly. She also said a paper trail for all Iowans would be so long that it could stretch from New York to California.

"I don't care what people say; it's very important that people take into consideration the integrity of the system," said Patrick Gill, Woodbury County auditor.

Woodbury County uses optical scan machines similar to ones used in Story County and Gill said he would not recommend switching to direct recording machines.

"I have no problem with defending the returns in this county when you have a voter-verified paper trail," Gill said.

"But how are you going to answer voters' questions about integrity if all you have is a memory chip that says your vote was counted?"

As part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, states are given federal money to voting machines to comply with minimum election standards set forth by the federal government by 2006.

Phyllis Peters, spokeswoman for the Iowa secretary of state's office, said Iowa gets $29 million from the federal government to implement these s, which is matched by $1.1 million of state money. Story County is allotted more than $450,000 to its system, which includes the purchase of 44 new handicapped-accessible machines.

According to the law, Iowa must make three s to its voting system:

Voters with disabilities must have the ability to cast ballots privately and independently.

This will require the 84 counties that use optical scan machines to purchase a new machine for each precinct.

In the counties using direct recording machines, a software and the addition of a Braille accessory is required.

The 56 counties using optical scan machines at a central location must now implement machines in each precinct. Story County uses precinct counting, which means voters submit their ballots to an optical scan machine, and if their ballot contains an error, the machine does not accept the ballot.

In other counties like Boone, errors cannot be caught right away because the ballots are counted by a machine in a central location. As a result, voters are unable to correct errors.

Counties with optical ballot readers must machines to enable them to read ballot markings made by most pens and pencils.

These readers must also be more sensitive to partially-filled ovals on the ballots.