County vetoes touch-screens
Volusia will rally its 16 cities in asking the state for more time to buy voting machines for the disabled.

By Kevin P. Connolly | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 11, 2005

DELAND Foes of paperless voting scored a surprising victory Thursday after County Council members derailed plans to buy 210 touch-screen machines for disabled voters in Volusia a move that could reverberate across Florida as a deadline looms.

"We didn't win the war but we won the battle," said touch-screen foe Ron Cahen, legislative committee chairman for the American Civil Liberties Union's chapter for Volusia and Flagler counties.

County Chairman Frank Bruno said the county would rally Volusia's 16 cities to join their cause to urge state and federal lawmakers to give them more time to buy equipment for disabled people that somehow provides a paper record. No such machine is certified for use in Florida.

Council members also want clarification about exactly how much time they have and specifically what their responsibilities are.

The federal deadline is Jan. 1, 2006, but Florida imposed an earlier date of July 1, said Volusia Elections Supervisor Ann McFall, who said other Florida counties with similar equipment as Volusia's will bring up the same issue with their county boards within the next week.

Many of the roughly 40 e-voting foes who attended Thursday's meeting in DeLand donned bright orange stickers bearing the message "Paper not Vapor," a reference to their concerns about potential vulnerabilities of electronic voting and their desire to have a "verifiable paper trail" such as paper ballots.

County Council members said they shared some concerns, and they weren't happy with state and federal lawmakers because they felt they were being forced to buy equipment they didn't want.

"So, mark Jack Hayman down as one who is concerned, and I'm not ready to move on this," County Council member Jack Hayman said.

McFall wanted council members to rescind last year's authorization to spend nearly $1 million to purchase nearly 200 AutoMARK ballot-marking machines for disabled voters because they aren't certified for use in Florida and it's likely they won't get approved in time to meet the July date.

Instead, McFall wanted permission to spend probably a little less for the only equipment currently certified for disabled and nondisabled people in Florida touch-screen machines.

McFall wanted machines from Diebold Election Systems, which is the company that services Volusia's voting system.

Lake County is among the 15 of 67 counties in Florida that use touch-screen voting machines for all voters. The other counties, including Volusia, use optical scanners that read paper ballots marked by voters.

Both AutoMark devices and touch-screen machines can be configured with an "audio ballot" and headphones, allowing blind people to vote independently by following audio prompts and special buttons.

AutoMark, though, marks a ballot the same type of ballot used by other voters and doesn't record electronic votes.