Key task for appointee will be voting machines
Law says counties using electronics need paper trail

Christian Berthelsen, San Franicisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, February 12, 2005
 

Sacramento If Bruce McPherson is confirmed to replace Kevin Shelley as secretary of state, one of his first and most urgent tasks will be to carry out voting machine reforms championed by his predecessor.

Under state law, California has until January 2006 to ensure its electronic voting systems can produce a paper record of voters' ballot box choices, which voters can review and confirm. Shelley was an early and aggressive champion of the idea, saying it would create a transparent and certifiable system giving voters confidence that their choices were accurately recorded.

Yet while some counties, such as San Francisco, already use paper systems that comply with the standard, and others have secured electronic systems that will do so eventually, others lag behind. And some local elections officials continue to resist the mandate.

Another impending deadline will require every polling place in the state to have at least one booth that disabled people can use without needing assistance, so they can vote in private.

Funding is not expected to be a problem for either task, as California officials already have $94 million on hand for upgrade projects and expect to receive another $169 million from the federal government for the work.

But the money has yet to be disbursed to local officials, and the work is expected to take some time, registrars and election experts said Friday. If the deadline is not met, then the state could face lawsuits from voter interest groups.

"It's not a lot of time, and we have a lot of work to do," said Kim Alexander, the president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.

What is more, county and state election officials say there is no system currently certified and available that will comply with both the paper trail requirement and all other state laws to accommodate independent voters and non- English speakers. The one system currently certified by the secretary of state, county registrars say, does not have technology qualified by the federal government to handle decline-to-state voters who are allowed to vote in partisan primaries and does not print in languages other than English and Spanish.

"The main issue, I think for the counties right now, is the voting system certification issue," said Connie McCormack, the president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and the registrar of the state's largest county, Los Angeles. "We're nine and a half months away from the deadline for compliance, and counties are hamstrung by the inability to purchase federally compliant voting equipment.''

Tony Miller, a staff counsel for the secretary of state's office, said he expects that system as well as others will be modified and ready for the counties by the deadline.

McPherson acknowledged it is a "difficult time for the secretary of state position," and said one of his top goals is to restore the "trust, confidence and efficiency" of the office.

In a departure from the prickly relationship between county election officials and Shelley who greeted them upon entering office by telling them there was a "new sheriff in town" McPherson said he wanted to make local registrars his "partners in reform."

That may be difficult. McCormack, the Los Angeles registrar, has adamantly opposed the paper trail system and has suggested the new requirement should be suspended, if only temporarily.

McPherson reiterated his support for the paper trail system Friday, noting that he was a co-author of the legislation which passed the Legislature unanimously that created the requirement in the first place.

Another looming deadline for the new secretary is the need to create a statewide voter database by January in order to comply with federal mandates.

The statewide voter database is intended to make registration rolls more accurate, which is expected to reduce election problems. California already has an existing database, called CalVoter, but officials have gone back and forth over whether it can meet federal standards.

"The statewide voter database is a huge project," said Brad Clark, the registrar of Alameda County. "I think the Secretary of State is really behind on that, and they're going to have to put some resources into that project."