Failed voting system fine for other states
J.D. Prose, Beaver County and Allegheny Times Staff
05/01/2005
 Whatever happens with the Patriot touch-screen voting system in Pennsylvania, Susan Miller is sure of one thing: It won't affect what happens in her county.

Miller, the general registrar in Augusta County, Va., said she still has confidence in the Patriot system even though she knows that it was decertified earlier this month in Pennsylvania.

Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties were the only three in Pennsylvania to use the Patriot system, which was denied certification on Friday after a retest on April 22 in Harrisburg.

Those three counties will now use an optical-scan method of voting in which voters fill out ovals on paper ballots that are later scanned and counted by machines.

Although the future of the Patriot system in Pennsylvania remains in doubt - UniLect can again request a certification hearing - the touch-screen system will be welcomed in Augusta County.

"We have no intentions of breaking our contract," Miller said. "We're still backing the system 100 percent."

Miller's assuredness is understandable, especially when you realize that UniLect Corp.'s Patriot system won't even be used in her county until November.

"We look at (the Patriot system) and go, 'How could this be confusing?" Miller said.

Augusta County is spending $350,000 in federal money received under the Help America Vote Act to buy the new system, Miller said. Previously, the county, with 38,269 voters, used lever machines in its 25 precincts.

UniLect President Jack Gerbel explained the situation in Pennsylvania, Miller said, and she thinks there are major differences in the systems used in the two states. For example, there is no straight-party voting in Virginia as there is in Pennsylvania.

In recommending that the Patriot system be decertified in Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University computer professor Michael Shamos cited difficulty voters have in casting straight-party ballots and the possibility that they could inadvertently de their choices.

Camille LaCognata, manager of the voting equipment division for the Virginia state board of elections, said five cities and 16 counties use the Patriot system in her state.

Gerbel has said about 44 counties nationwide use the Patriot system.

LaCognata said she researched the situation in Pennsylvania and spoke with Beaver County elections director Dorene Mandity since the two know each other. Like Miller, LaCognata said Virginia's Patriot system is newer - it uses color screens - and offers different software because there is no straight-party voting.

In fact, the Virginia state elections board met Wednesday and decided to take no action related to the Patriot system, she said.

"We are standing by the UniLect system here," LaCognata said. "We don't have any reason to rescind the certification of the UniLect system."

Miller said all types of voting systems, not just the Patriot system, have come under scrutiny. "If you look long enough," she said, "you can find something wrong with every single one of them."

Lost votes in North Carolina

On the North Carolina coast, Carteret County became a center of controversy in the fall election when more than 4,400 votes were lost on one Patriot control unit set up for early voting.

Patsy Hardesty, director of Carteret County's elections department, said officials "thought we were doing great" until they noticed that 4,438 votes had disappeared. There are 34 precincts and 42,129 registered voters in Carteret County.

In the end, Hardesty said, UniLect software engineer George Mitchell determined that the control unit was programmed to hold only 3,005 votes, even though she said he previously told the county it would hold 10,500.

"What would you have thought?" asked Hardesty. "We were taking his word for it."

The result? Once the control unit tallied 3,005 votes, all the votes after that were gone for good.

Carteret County had bought the Patriot system for nearly $400,000 in 1996, and it had never been d, Hardesty said, but that will soon change.

"You better believe (UniLect) will be" updating the system, she said.

Out in western North Carolina, Burke County found itself being visited by a team of state officials because it was the only other county in the state using the Patriot system.

"I know of no reason to think that the equipment did not function as it has," said Greer Suttlemyre, director of the Burke County board of elections.

Suttlemyre said Patriot's troubles in Pennsylvania raise concerns, but so far, the county board is satisfied with its performance. Burke County has 53,387 registered voters.

Don Wright, general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said there was an undervote of about 10 percent in Burke County. The undervote is the difference between the number of ballots cast in a particular race, usually the presidential race, and the total number of ballots cast.

However, Wright said there was also a 10 percent undervote when the investigative team counted provisional votes and other ballots cast on paper. There is straight-ticket voting in North Carolina, but that does not include the presidential race.

"It does look like the way the straight-party ticket was placed on the (Patriot) machine, it might have caused some people to undervote," Wright said.

In his report on the problems in Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon's Shamos included a Grove City College study that used the presidential race to determine the undervote rates for Beaver, Greene and Mercer were far higher than counties using other types of voting systems.

Experts typically are concerned when there is a 2 percent undervote rate. Last November, 4,551 Beaver County residents who showed up at the polls didn't vote for president, an undervote of 5.25 percent.

North Carolina officials know what's happening in Pennsylvania, Wright said, and it could be a topic of discussion when a new state elections board meets later this year.

"UniLect is on our front burner," he said. "It is relevant to North Carolina, and it will certainly be considered by the North Carolina State Board of Elections if and when the issue of UniLect comes before it."

Dropping Patriot

Mary Joyce Holmes said Georgetown County, S.C., spent $500,000 on the Patriot system just two years ago.

Now, though, the county is following a statewide initiative and switching to a touch-screen system made by ES&S, a Nebraska-based company that is leasing paper ballots and scanning machines to Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties for the May 17 primary.

Holmes, Georgetown County's director of registrations and elections, said most counties in the state are switching under the Help America Vote Act so her county officials also decided to change.

Garry Baum, public information director for the South Carolina Election Commission, said only three counties and one town in his state used the Patriot system.

The new ES&S system includes an optical-scan method for absentee voting, Baum said.

The Patriot system was used in the November election, Holmes said, and there were no problems. There are 35,000 registered voters in Georgetown County, she said.

Baum also said he had not heard of any jurisdictions having problems with the Patriot system.

Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land announced two weeks ago that more than half of her state's cities and townships have switched to the optical-scan method. According to Land's statement, 41 counties and 624 cities and townships have ordered $16.7 million worth of optical-scan equipment.

Similar to South Carolina, these purchases are also being funded through the Help America Vote Act. All Michigan counties will use an optical-scan system by 2006, Land said.

In an October 2004 report by the Michigan state department, only three townships and two cities were still using the Patriot system.

Five months before that report, Land announced the first purchase orders placed for the optical-scan system.

"Michigan's move to optical scan inoculates it from the recent controversy centered on touch-screen voting systems," read the May 2004 press release from the Michigan Department of State.

Land also listed some advantages of the optical-scan method, which included having a paper trail in case of recounts, a ballot that can be viewed by voters before being cast and the ability to notify voters when errors are made on ballots so that new ballots can be cast.

"Optical scan is a proven system that incorporates the safeguards necessary to ensure election integrity," Land was quoted as saying in the release. "Michigan is investing in democracy, and the payoff benefits everyone."