Elections directors will meet in Carteret
April 02,2005
Sue Book
New Bern Sun Journal

With the assortment of vote-counting irregularities reported in North Carolina's 2004 General Election and lawmakers' consideration of election reform to avoid recurrences, the 240 state elections directors meeting in Carteret County this month have a clear conference agenda.

"Equipment is going to be the big topic there," said Tiffiney Miller, elections director in Craven County, where the touch screens on direct record electronic voting machines malfunctioned and an early election night vote tally included some duplicated votes.

Craven's problems resulted in an early and unofficial incorrect call on the winner of a county commission race. The problems in other counties were more serious and permanent and left undecided two state races - for agriculture secretary and superintendent of public instruction.

A total 4,438 one-stop voters in Carteret County were lost because a counter on one machine was not d. Although the voter names were recorded on the provisional ballots, election laws do not allow for them to be called in for a re-vote.

Voting problems also were reported in other counties including Onslow, Gaston, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Burke, Buncombe counties, but were not all related to machine error.

Cleveland County lost 120 votes when ballots were accidentally left at a firehouse polling place and accidentally tossed. Which provisional ballots to count is still in limbo.

And North Carolina is not the only state with problems or looking hard at voting equipment.

New York State Board of Elections Director Tom Wilkey is one of the featured speakers at the April 10-12 conference for the North Carolina Association of Directors of Elections. He will speak on voting systems standards like those under consideration in this state.

As Miller prepares for the meeting at the Atlantic Beach Sheraton, she has zeroed in on online demonstrations from machine vendors.

About $30 million came to the state's elections board to help voting equipment through funding for the Help America Vote Act and another $30 million is expected, but much of it has not been allocated because national standards are also not set.

Meeting in New Bern in May 2004, the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted to stop all certification of electronic voting machines until national standards are in place.

"We will almost certainly have to replace our voting equipment," Miller said of Craven's Electronic Systems and Software iVotronic machines. But she could not include an estimate of the county's cost in the equation because there are no official standards.