Few problems with paper ballots
By Andrew Conte? Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Voters in three Western Pennsylvania counties went back in time to vote on paper ballots Tuesday even after taxpayers spent millions of dollars on state-of-the-art technology.

Electronic voting machines typically used in Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties were decertified by the Department of State last month after a state study discovered irregularities.

That forced elections officials to scrap the new machines in favor of paper ballots the kind with ovals that voters must darken, similar to sheets used by students on standardized exams.

Many voters griped about the changes, and it took longer to calculate the results, but there were few major problems reported.
"It's like riding a bicycle," said Bob Schmetzer, 58, a Democratic committeeman in South Heights Borough in Beaver County. "It's pretty easy to get back into it. It's just a matter of making little circles."

In Allegheny County, meanwhile, officials did not experience a repeat of the problems with provisional ballots that created minor havoc during the 2004 general election. Provisional ballots are designed to allow people not on voter-registration lists to cast their votes while their registration status is verified.

Last November, more than 80 of the county's 1,311 polling places ran out of the provisional ballots, and the county had to keep open a Downtown precinct for an additional 90 minutes to accommodate voters who had been turned away elsewhere.

Bob Borgoyne, an assistant solicitor for the Allegheny County Law Department, said yesterday was the slowest Election Day he could recall working at Common Pleas Court in the past nine years.

At the K. Leroy Irvis Towers in the Lower Hill District, elections judge Joan Sheffey said she was enjoying a relatively calm day with about-average turnout. Her polling station ran out of provisional ballots in November but had not needed even one by late yesterday.

"There weren't hundreds and hundreds of problems, but there were enough problems that we should still be concerned," said Celeste Taylor, Pennsylvania policy director for the Association of Communities Organized for Reform Now.

Despite the frustration of some voters in Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties, elections officials reported few problems with the paper ballots.

"We had no problems," said Eugene "Salt" Smith, the Democratic chairman in Aliquippa, Beaver County. "Not a one. In fact, a lot of people were coming up and saying it was easier than they thought it would be."

Voters filled out the ballots at their individual polling places, and the ballots were brought back to the elections office in each county to be read by an optical scanner. Votes for write-in candidates had to be counted by hand.

Sheila Green, of Freedom, Beaver County, who led a petition drive to have the electronic voting machines studied, said she felt more confident voting on paper. Although she teaches computer classes, Green said she would feel even better if the ballots were counted by hand.

"I'm not a Luddite," Green said. "I love computers, but you have to be careful about keeping track of the actual records because components fail."

A state study indicated that the "undercount" the difference between the number of voters who cast ballots and the total votes counted in the general election was substantially higher in the three Pennsylvania counties with UniLect machines than the 1.5 percent average for a group of 24 rural counties.

Catherine Burkhart, a spokeswoman for UniLect, said the company was "incredibly alarmed" about the undercount. The problem, she said, seemed to be linked with a lack of voter education on using the machines.

"We'll do whatever we can to help those counties and the voters in those counties," Burkhart said.

The machines, manufactured by UniLect Corp. of Dublin, Calif., were certified by the state in 1994 and recertified for each election since. The UniLect Patriot system is used by more than two dozen counties in other states.