County, city opt for past in ballots

By John McCormick, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Laurie Cohen and Dan Mihalopoulos contributed to this report
Published June 2, 2005

The notorious punch-card ballotand its hanging, dimpled and pregnant chadswill be a relic of the past in Chicago and suburban Cook County by early 2006 following the expected approval of more than $50 million in new voting equipment.

Chicago election officials Wednesday ed California-based Sequoia Voting Systems to provide touch screen and optical scan equipment for each of the city's more than 2,700 precincts, a contract expected to be worth about $28million.

Late last week, Cook County Clerk David Orr also recommended Sequoia, although a final decision is still needed by the Board of Commissioners. That contract would provide equipment for more than 2,400 precincts at an estimated cost of $23.8 million.

The decisions mark a sort of middle-tech solution. Most voters will mark ovals or arrows on paper ballots, while those who are blind, disabled or not able to read English or Spanish can use electronic touch screens to record their ions.

The dual approach is one way to meet a 2006 federal requirement to provide unassisted voting to the disabled, while not fully embracing electronic voting and the security and reliability hazards some say it presents.

Some potential vendors were disgruntled by the decision after competing for more than a year.

"We are surprised that the city and county would move toward a technology that dates back to the mid-1980s," said David Bear, a spokesman for Ohio-based Diebold Inc., a finalist.

"It will be much more expensive to print ballots than with more modern technologies."

Representatives from Sequoia, meanwhile, said they planned to open a Chicago office to help with the transition.

City and county officials say the federal government, through the Help America Vote Act, will pay for almost all the cost associated with the new equipment.

More than half of the state's counties already use optical scan voting, a process that is similar to taking a standardized test. Voters mark ballots with a pencil or pen, then feed them into a scanner that counts them. The machines reject ballots if they have not been filled out correctly.

Chicago voters have used punch-card ballots since 1982, while those in suburban Cook County have used them since 1976, election officials said.

The experience with punch card ballots has been less than stellar here and elsewhere. More than 120,000 Cook County voters in 2000 failed to register a choice for president or rendered their choice unusable by piercing holes next to names of two or more candidates.

The ballot style came under intense scrutiny in 2000, as the nation watched controversial recounts in Florida counties that ended up with George W. Bush in the White House after a Supreme Court ruling.

City and county officials said Sequoia submitted the lowest bid among four finalists that also included Diebold, Hart InterCivic of Texas and Election Systems & Software of Nebraska, a longtime city contractor.

The voting machine manufacturers, who have seen a flood of new business since 2000, used some of the city's top lobbyists in trying to win the Chicago and Cook County contracts.

William Griffin, a former Tribune reporter and top aide to former Mayor Jane Byrne, represented Sequoia, along with Bill Filan, who once worked for House Speaker Michael Madigan.

ACG Group, a company working with Diebold, in turn hired Victor Reyes and his law firm, Greenberg Traurig, as a lobbyist, city records show. Reyes is a former top aide to Mayor Richard Daley.

Avis LaVelle, state director for John Kerry's presidential campaign and former press secretary to Mayor Daley, lobbied for Hart InterCivic, according to city records.

Officials in DuPage County, where optical scanning was first used in 2001, say they have been pleased with their decision.

"We think the technology is very, very sound," said Robert Saar, executive director of the DuPage County Election Commission. "It's proven technology."

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New voting machines for Chicago and Cook County

Chicago and Cook County election officials have endorsed a plan that would place two types of voting machines in each precinct. Most voters would use paper ballots and an optical scanner while those who are blind, disabled or not able to read English or Spanish will use an electronic touch screen to record their ions.

OPTICAL SCAN

- As in a standardized school test, voters fill in a rectangle, circle or oval, or complete an arrow next to their choice.

- Ballots are fed into a machine, which reads the darkest mark as a vote and counts the ballot.

ELECTRONIC

- Voters make ions by touching the screen. An audio feature is available for the blind.

Source: Sequoia Voting Systems