Voting machine advice irks county

Officials: Touting a particular maker is wrong

By Bill Cotterell   Tallahassee Democrat   30 March 2005

Secretary of State Glenda Hood's elections office has advised Leon County to provide handicapped voters a touch-screen-voting system made by a company whose president caused a stir in last year's campaign by promising to help deliver Ohio to President Bush.

Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho objected Tuesday to a brief letter sent to county officers by Paul Craft, head of voting-systems certification for the Division of Elections in Hood's department, touting a Diebold system. State law requires counties to have handicapped-accessible equipment in every voting precinct by July 1.

"Your immediate, and probably most cost-effective, option is to upgrade your voting system to the Diebold Election Systems Inc.... system as certified Oct. 14, 2004," Craft wrote to Sancho. He sent copies to County Commission Chairman Cliff Thaell and Herb Thiele, the county attorney.

Craft wrote that in regional conference calls last week, several counties asked for advice on meeting the accessibility deadline.

"My personal view is that it's a bunch of hooey," Thaell said. "It's inappropriate for the state to be so heavy-handed with an elected constitutional officer such as the supervisor of elections."

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood, said there are three touch-screen systems certified for "audio-ballot" voting by the handicapped. She said they are made by Diebold Election System of McKinney, Texas, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., and Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb..

"I think we recommended Diebold because he already has Diebold equipment and it would be compatible," Nash said. She said the department recommended other brands for other counties.

"Since Florida began using these voting systems in 2002 the disabled community, for the first time ever, was able to cast an independent ballot," she said of the touch screens.

But Sancho said Diebold optical scanners are not compatible with Diebold touch-screen systems unless a third piece of equipment is bought. He said the ES&S "AutoMark" system - not a touch screen - is probably what he will recommend to Thaell for handicapped voting.

"The problem is that election regulation in this state is administered by people who have never run an election," said Sancho, who has been elections supervisor since 1988.

The use of touch-screen-voting machines, and their lack of paper records, was a source of lawsuits and political posturing in last year's Florida campaign. Hood defended their accuracy while Democrats argued that without paper ballots no recounts would be possible.

Leon County uses Diebold optical-scanning voting machines, on which voters mark an oval next to candidates' names and computers count their ballots. Touch-screen systems, similar to those in some supermarkets and banks, are used in 15 Florida counties with more than half of the statewide vote - allowing voters to touch a spot next to candidates or ballot issues.

"People in Leon County would rather vote on paper than on vapor," Sancho said.

Diebold's chief executive, Walden O'Dell, was harshly attacked by Democrats and other Bush critics last year because of a 2003 fund-raising letter he sent for a Bush-Cheney '04 event. O'Dell wrote that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president next year."

Ohio turned out to be the tipping point on Nov. 2. O'Dell explained during the campaign that he only meant that he would support Bush personally - adding that Diebold's election-systems division is located in Texas and is run by a Democrat.

Although the federal Help America Vote Act gives states until Jan. 1 to have accessible voting equipment at every precinct, Sancho said, Florida requires counties to get them by July 1.

Sancho said Craft told him the AutoMark optical-scanning system should be certified by September for handicapped voters. Since there are no statewide elections until September 2006, Sancho said, counties should be allowed to wait until other handicapped-accessible scanners are approved.

"If you buy the AutoMark system you don't have to buy a third piece of equipment," said Sancho.

Previously, Sancho said he has had two poll workers - a Democrat and a Republican - go with handicapped voters into a private area to fill in the ovals on a scanned ballot. One poll worker verifies that the other has accurately marked the ballots, he said.