Proposal for new Las Vegas-area voting machines questioned
By ELIZABETH WHITE
ASSOCIATED PRESS?? 02 May 2005

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A Nevada Senate panel on Monday questioned the need for new voting machines in the Las Vegas-area, saying the county's current technology may not have to be replaced.

Secretary of State Dean Heller urged the Senate Finance Committee to pass SB501, which would allocate $15 million to buy 4,400 machines with voter-verifiable paper trails. Two-thirds of the county's current machines, called "full-face" models, store vote results on a cartridge and can be printed out later - but voters can't see the results when they cast their ballots.

The other third are the newer models which do allow immediate review by voters, Heller said. Half of the county's voters cast their ballots on the new machines, while the other half used the older ones last fall. Nevada led the nation in use of the new devices.

"What if that cartridge fails?" Heller asked after the hearing, noting a number of instances in the 2004 general elections across the country where several kinds of voting machines allegedly failed to record accurate votes.

Sixteen of Nevada's 17 counties used only the newer voter-verified machines - bought with federal dollars through the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA - last fall. There are pending requests for more federal funding that would be used to replace the older models in Clark County.

Heller said Nevada won't see that money until 2008 at the earliest, adding that he promised voters that they'd all have voter-verifiable machines by 2006. Recounts in close or contested races can't be done accurately using the current mix of systems, he said.

"Clearly what we're trying to do here today is assure that Nevada doesn't have similar problems to those seen around the country," he said, adding, "Nevada has been conditioned to believe that elections are not an exact science. I'm here to tell you today that elections are and should be an exact science."

But both Republicans and Democrats on the committee wondered if the upgrade is really necessary.

Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, said that since the old and new machines comply with HAVA, the state has the option to replace the older models as they break or wait until federal funding is available. He also said both versions of machines offer the voter a way to review their ballot on the screen before casting it for good.

"The verification that's offered here is illusory at best," Beers said of the new models. "You do have a visual presentation of how your whole ballot looks with either system."

Beers said granting the funding request would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, but Heller said that without giving voters the option to review their ballot on paper, "it's garbage in, garbage out."

"If you're accusing me of blowing money, please show me how," Heller continued.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, wondered why Clark County can't pay for the machines with its own revenues.

"I just hate the thought of throwing all of those away," she said, adding that one option might be to replace some of the machines so voters can choose to use those if they're worried.

Dan Musgrove, a lobbyist for Clark County, said the county originally thought the machines' manufacturer would be able to retrofit the old machines to provide voter verification, but that was deemed to be more expensive than replacing the machines altogether.

Denying the request would mean the county would be required to pay for something out of its own pocket other counties didn't have to, Musgrove said.

While Beers said he hasn't received any complaints from his constituents about lack of voter verification, Larry Lomax, Clark County's registrar of voters, said he received about 100.

And Heller told lawmakers that $15 million is a small price to pay to secure democracy and raise the level of reliability.

"I think it would be tremendously irresponsible to tell Clark County voters, 'You're not valuable enough to verify your own votes but the rest of the state can'," he said.