Voting choice
Delay purchase of touch-screen machines

Editorial    Daytona Beach News-Journal
Last : March 10, 2005

Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall is between a rock and a hard place. State law says she has to provide 179 machines one for each precinct for voters with disabilities by July 1. At the same time, the Florida Division of Elections says she has to purchase a state-certified machine for these voters one she believes is inferior to the county's current system or face criminal penalties.

Today the County Council will wrestle with McFall's request to solicit bids for touch-screen machines for voters with disabilities. Approval would reverse an earlier decision to purchase equipment that would allow special-needs voters to use the more reliable optical-scan ballots.

Council members face a difficult choice: Meet the state deadline and give short shrift to voters with disabilities. Or delay the vote, which could force the county into a challenge with state elections authorities. The council should postpone the purchase.

The purchase of touch-screen machines would create a troubling disparity. Voters with disabilities would be using touch-screen machines. The reliability of these machines has been questioned in independent studies and they offers voters no credible paper record to prove that votes are accurately recorded. All other voters would be using the current optical-scanning system that is recognized for its reliability and has a direct paper trail.

Last year, the County Council authorized McFall's predecessor to buy the equipment that would have allowed special-needs voters to use the same optical-scan ballot as other voters. The equipment, which provides audio and video prompts for marking ballots, doesn't collect or count votes separately as the touch-screens would.

If the County Council approves seeking bids for the touch-screen machines, that likely means they would be purchased from the same company, Diebold, that makes its optical-scan equipment to ensure compatibility.

The problems are manifold. The greatest is that the elections supervisor would have two separate vote-counting systems, making it more difficult to verify accuracy of voting. Unfortunately, solutions don't fall within the county's purview.

In essence, supervisors of elections statewide are at the mercy of a few voting-machine manufacturers, who are in stiff competition nationwide. Manufacturers do not want to change their systems to accommodate equipment made by other companies. Plus, some vendors stand to profit substantially if elections officials switch to touch-screens, which are considerably more expensive than optical-scanners. So their lobbyists are pushing hard for states to require the touch-screen systems. In Florida, some are using the voters-with-disabilities provision to get a foot in the door then push for uniform touch-screen systems for all.

Also at issue are Florida election laws that are not up to date with new technology and don't give county elections supervisors enough leeway to make the best choices for voters. Clearly, private vendors should not have the power to dictate what systems a county can use. Other county elections supervisors are challenging the vendors and seeking changes in state law to recognize new technology and to support county-based choices. Volusia County should, too.

Volusia County also could join others in seeking to change Florida law to conform with the federal voting act, which doesn't require an audio-video system for voters with disabilities until Jan. 1, 2006. Some supervisors believe that component-type technology can be ready for use by September. It's worth taking the risk. Voters with disabilities deserve equal opportunities but they won't get it if county leaders statewide sit back and let vendors rule the road.