Voting machine bills may advance

by Steven T. Dennis
Staff Writer   Maryland Gazette
Mar. 9, 2005

ANNAPOLIS ? Support for a major upgrade to the state's electronic voting machines appears to be growing in the House of Delegates, while the state has ordered Diebold to investigate why some of its machines failed on Election Day.

House Ways and Means Chairwoman Sheila Ellis Hixson, who killed the paper ballot bill last year, told The Gazette that she expects some form of the legislation to pass this year and will hold a meeting next week with a half-dozen manufacturers of equipment intended to improve security.

"You will see something move and we want people to have confidence in the system," said Hixson (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch added his support. "I think we need a paper trail," said Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis.

"Nobody has any confidence that if there is a problem with one of these machines, you are going to trace out the mistakes. There are people that are never going to have confidence in the system unless you can provide some evidence that the votes were cast properly."

Busch's position is at odds with Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone, a Democrat, who says that adding a paper trail will cause more problems than it would solve.

"I think it is a wonderful system," Lamone said of the Diebold machines.

However, Lamone acknowledged ordering Diebold to investigate why some machines failed on Election Day, with machines freezing up or having other problems.

Lamone said that in Montgomery County, about 300 of the 2,850 voting machines were referred for special maintenance for various issues.

Among them were machines not properly plugged in, so their batteries ran down, to machines with cracked screens, bent legs or other mechanical problems.

Lamone said that of those 300, 26 had problems directly related to voting, and of those, 12 experienced problems after the polls opened.

The other 14 were taken out of service before the polls opened, she said.

Asked if any votes may have been lost, Lamone said, "Absolutely not," saying that election judges can tell if a vote has been cast by comparing the total number of votes on the machines to the total number of people who checked in at the polling place.

Samuel L. Statland, a member of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, wrote Hixson last month urging passage of reform bills, calling the state "a test site for electronic voting."

He said the county board found 7 percent of its units failed, and 5 percent were suspect because they had logged few votes.

Some 58 units failed to start, and 106 units experienced screen freezes, according to Statland's letter.

TrueVoteMd.org, a citizens group highly critical of the machines and Lamone, called for an independent investigation into the voting problems and for decertification of the machines, contending that they do not adequately protect the vote.

Linda Schade, head of the group, said it was not enough for Diebold and State Board of Elections to "investigate themselves. ? If that's not the fox guarding the henhouse, I don't know what is."

Lamone shrugged off the criticism.

"What's the issue here? We had almost 3,000 units and we only had 12 with a problem and no votes were lost? How many cars didn't start in the U.S. today? I bet a lot. Does that mean we go back to the horse and buggy?"

It is unclear how much adding either a paper audit trail or another level of security or verification would cost.

Estimates have ranged from $10 million to $20 million for the state's 16,000 machines.

Some, meanwhile, have suggested ditching the machines and returning to an optical scan system, which are cheaper and use paper ballots.