Utah decides on voting machines

Amie Rose Provo DAILY HERALD    01 June 2005

It's decided next year Utahns will be touching computer screens instead of punching ballots at the polls, but maybe not in Utah County.

Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert announced Tuesday he'd chosen direct recording electronic voting equipment ATM-like machines made by Diebold to replace the state's punchcard system.

But Utah County officials want to make sure going with the state's plan to replace all punchcard machines is the least expensive option, and they plan to get their own bids for voting equipment that complies with the federal Help America Vote Act a reaction to voting problems in Florida during the 2000 election. They'll put out a request for bids within the next few weeks, said Utah County Commissioner Jerry Grover.

"We'd like to go out for a (request for proposals) for a true price comparison," he said.

Diebold won the bid by getting the highest scores from the state's Voting Equipment Selection Committee, said Joe Demma, Herbert's spokesman. The most important thing Diebold's machine had over the competition was a "certified printed paper audit trail."

Utah law now requires voting equipment to produce an auditable, voter-verified paper trail of votes. The record must "be available for the voter's inspection prior to the voter leaving the polling place."

Within the next 60 days, the state will negotiate contracts with the 29 counties to determine how many machines each county needs and distribute the $3.7 million shortfall between how much money the state has and what the systems will cost. But Utah County wants to see if it can spend less by buying one DRE for each polling place, instead of replacing all voting machines.

Federal law requires at least one voting machine per polling place that is accessible to people with disabilities. The system must have "nonvisual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters."

The county's share of the $3.7 million could be as much as $700,000, and buying one per polling place could be a lot less now even though the money wouldn't be due until 2010 and in the long run, Grover said. Having fewer DRE machines would mean lower replacement costs after their 10-year warranty expires.

The county hopes to get bids from companies with HAVA-compliant machines that weren't ready when the state put out its bid last year, or that weren't able to replace punchcard machines in the whole state, he said.

Grover said he also sees a benefit in keeping the punchcard system for people who don't want to use electronic machines.

Sandy Hoffmann, Utah County elections coordinator, used Diebold's equipment during the March demonstration and liked it. But she's worried the technology will keep the county's network of older election judges away.

"I'm a little concerned with the technology because the average age of an election judge is 65," she said.