Paper Trail
A last-minute law change puts the future of paper-ballot voting up in the air.
by Ted McDonough   Salt Lake City Weekly   04 May 2005
 

A law just passed by Utah?s Legislature says in no uncertain terms the state?s next batch of voting machines will come equipped to ?produce a permanent paper record.? Problem is, it may result in nothing of the sort.

A last-minute language change ed into the bill during Utah?s two-day special legislative session likely makes the paper-record provision meaningless. And other changes mean safeguards desired by critics of electronic voting won?t take effect until well after Utah has purchased its voting machines.

Officials with the lieutenant governor?s office, charged with choosing new voting equipment, say they fully intend to purchase machines producing a paper trail regardless of what the law says. But paper-trail activists remain concerned the changes could open the ion to all sorts of monkey business.

How, exactly, the law got changed is a mystery. The lieutenant governor?s office asked for some tinkering to ensure the legislation wouldn?t force them to restart the nearly completed equipment-ion process. No one, however, has claimed responsibility for the biggest change?the addition of eight words that effectively mean the law doesn?t apply to older, no-paper electronic voting machines critics hate.

The new words say the paper ballot requirement applies only to ?voting equipment certified after January 1, 2005.? Utah has machines already ?certified? that don?t produce paper ballots voters can inspect, according to the State Elections Office.

The national office of Verified Voting had praised Utah?s law but is now ?gravely concerned,? said Pamela Smith, national coordinator of the pro paper-ballot group.

?There is a window where equipment could be bought that doesn?t have a voter-verified paper ballot,? she said. ?It doesn?t seem like that was the intent.?

Groups like Verified Voting want to have some way to check ballots other than trusting machines now coming on-line to replace infamous punch cards. They want the new machines to print a paper ballot election officials could check in case of a recount. They also want a paper ballot so voters can check to see the machine got their vote right. Advocates summarize their desires as wanting a ?voter verified paper audit trail.?

?No one can go back and prove their vote was a specific vote, because it?s a secret ballot,? said Brian Watkins, a local paper-ballot activist. ?You need a system where you have a reliable record that can speak for itself.?

The way Utah?s paper-ballot law was allowed to be rewritten during the special session is bizarre. One law requiring paper ballots had already passed during the regular session of the Legislature. The law?which contained no ifs, ands or buts?was sent to the governor and signed into law. But there was a hitch.

The state Office of Legislative Research, which drafts bills, discovered one of the last-minute floor amendments didn?t get into the draft that went to the governor. That meant the governor didn?t sign the real bill, and it wasn?t law after all.

The difference between the Legislature?s and the governor?s version of the law was probably a matter of a couple of words. None of the floor amendments had anything to do with whether or not paper ballots were required. But the glitch meant the process had to be done over again, and when the law came up for a revote in the special session, new language had been ed in three areas.

First was the ?January 1, 2005? language that may have grandfathered in old equipment. A second change modified a requirement that new voting machines allow voters to inspect their vote. The special session version says that?s still true, but ?only if reasonably practicable commercial methods? allowing such inspection are ?available at the time of certification.?

A third altered portion of the bill related to a committee of experts created to advise the lieutenant governor on equipment ion. In the special session version, committee consultation isn?t required for equipment purchased before Jan. 1, 2007.

Smith said the changes create ?a dangerous loophole? because Utah is under the gun to purchase new voting equipment soon. The federal government has given Utah $25 million, but the money is good only for equipment purchased in time for the 2006 federal elections.

?In this precise point in time where the money is going to be spent, suddenly we don?t need a voter verified paper audit trail,? Smith said.

State Elections Office Director Michael Cragun said his office doesn?t intend to use any loophole, noting that Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, his boss, has been a longtime proponent of paper ballots.

Herbert backs up that notion. ?Whatever system we deal with has to include a paper trail,? he said. ?There is a lack of confidence now with electronic voting. ? I think some of those fears are paranoiac, but nevertheless the way to assure people is to have some kind of a paper trail that can reconstruct the election.?

Cragun said the process being used to Utah?s new voting machines is exactly like that laid out in the original law, including a committee of experts. He said his office asked for the committee not to be officially required until 2007 because of the short time remaining for Utah to use federal funds. ?We wanted to make sure that there was no way the current process could be attacked because of this bill,? he said.

He doesn?t know how a provision got into the bill grandfathering in old machines. Neither does Sen. Curtis Bramble, who sponsored the bill in the Senate but wasn?t its chief author. Bramble believes the intent was to avoid forcing replacement of equipment the state already owns but still insist on paper ballots for any new equipment. The bill?s House sponsor, Rep. John Dougall, could not be reached for comment.

Advocates for paper ballots suspect state officials didn?t want to redo the bidding process. If so, that is too bad, said Smith. ?It seems to me clear the intent of the [original] law was to require a voter verified paper audit trail,? she said. ?Now we?re reliant on the right choice being made.?