The ballot question remains unanswered
J.D. Prose, Beaver County Times Staff
04/23/2005
 HARRISBURG - The touch-screen voting system used by Beaver County repeatedly failed Friday to register the fingertip touches of an examiner during a sometimes-tense retest that will determine whether the system is certified in the state.

Several times during the course of the 4?-hour retest, Carnegie Mellon University computer professor Michael Shamos tried to cast a vote but the Patriot system would not respond to his touch.

At one point, Shamos said, he pressed so hard that he thought he might hurt his finger or break the screen. Even in that instance, Shamos said, the system did not respond.

At one point, Shamos tried to vote a straight Republican ticket, but his touch was not recognized.

"What is going on here?" he asked Jack Gerbel, president of UniLect Corp., the California-based maker of the Patriot system.

"There's a point on this screen that is just not detecting the touch," Shamos said.

Gerbel seemed flummoxed by the problems Shamos had with the touch-screen.

"I really don't know the answer," he replied to Shamos.

Afterward, Gerbel said he couldn't imagine why Shamos had trouble, but he theorized it was because of the computer professor's method of touching.

Shamos kept his finger on the screen and gradually increased his pressure rather than picking his finger up and tapping the screen as most voters would do, Gerbel said.

Gerbel said there are 44 capsules on the screen to register touches. Shamos' problems with the touch-screen were the most obvious, but they were not the only ones during the retest in a hearing room in the North Office Building in Harrisburg.

There were questions also raised about the accuracy of the tabulation when voters write in the name of a candidate they've already voted for on the regular ballot.

Gerbel said that a second vote for any candidate made by a voter needs to be manually d from the tabulation.

Also, UniLect software engineer George Mitchell said there were some computer code changes made since the Patriot system was originally approved by the state in 1994, and Shamos requested a copy of the code.

Beaver County spent $1.2 million on the Patriot system and began using it in November 1998.

The retest got off to a combative start with Shamos quizzing Gerbel over comments he made after Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes' decision on April 7 to decertify the Patriot system.

Shamos had examined the system Feb. 15 and issued a report to Cortes that recommended decertification, which meant the voting system could no longer be used in the state. Beaver, Mercer and Greene counties are the only counties in the state that use the Patriot system.

Although he later apologized to Shamos, Gerbel at first tried to distance himself from comments he made to The Times in which he said Shamos' report was "totally wrong" and that Cortes' decision was "nuts."

"We feel that (decertification) should not have happened," Gerbel told Shamos. "The state has damaged our reputation. ... This is not something we take lightly."

Shamos said that he was relying on Gerbel to provide truthful information and that some of Gerbel's comments "give me pause as to whether I can trust this vendor."

With the May 17 primary only about three weeks away, Shamos acknowledged there is pressure to issue an opinion quickly. But he said he would have to review the video made of the hearing and the computer code before he makes a determination, and he wouldn't receive those items until the middle of next week.

Beaver County elections chief Dorene Mandity said she would need an answer no later than April 29. As of now, county officials are planning to use the optical-scan method of voting, in which voters mark paper ballots in pencil and then those ballots are scanned by machines at the courthouse.

The state has promised to pay for any costs associated with using the optical-scan method. Mandity has estimated it would cost more than $110,000 to use the system in the primary.

Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella said last week that he would want the Patriot system used in the primary if Shamos gives his approval.

Asked how he felt after the hearing, Gerbel replied with a sigh and a shrug. "My feeling is," he said, "I was confident last time and I was wrong."