Johnson says state on-track for meeting federal reforms

By WALT WILLIAMS     Bozeman Daily Chronicle     27 June 2005

Starting next year, information about every registered voter in Montana will be kept in a centralized database in Helena that election officials will be able to access through a few keystrokes.

The database is one of several federally mandated changes stemming from the Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress after the debacle of the 2000 presidential election.
  

The state is on track to meet those mandates and receive the $7 million in federal money to fund them, Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson said this past week.

"We need to have that in place by January 2006," he said.

Johnson, taking a few days off from his job in Helena to spend time at his home in Bozeman, stopped by the Chronicle offices to talk about some of the upcoming changes in the way the state conducts elections.

Specifically, he wanted to spread the word that the public now has the chance to comment on those upcoming changes, with the deadline for public input quickly approaching.

Most of the changes are the result of HAVA, a federal law passed in 2002.

One requirement is that states keep a single database of all registered voters. Currently, each of Montana's 56 counties keeps its own voter-registration list, so there are probably cases where individuals are registered to vote in more than one county.

Johnson doubts most of those cases are malicious. More likely, he said, someone moved and forgot to notify election officials about the change of address.

The statewide database will catch those cases. It will also allow people to register to vote the same day of the election, although they will have to register at the local county courthouse.

Saber Consulting Inc. of Salem, Ore., is setting up the database. Johnson said there will be a test run in mid-July in Missoula and Yellowstone counties.

It won't be ready for the June 2006 primary elections, he said. The state wants a little more time to make sure it is working properly, so the database won't be used until the November 2006 elections.

As far as security concerns, Johnson said the information stored on the database is the same information people can access at their local election offices, and there will be security systems in place to ensure it can't be hacked.

Other changes coming next year include:

? Electronic voting booths that will for the first time allow voters with crippling disabilities to vote on their own.

? A permanent absentee ballot list, maintained by the state, so voters don't have to register for absentee ballots before each election. They will, however, have to return a card mailed to them before every election to ensure they haven't moved. Failure to do so just once will take them off the list.

? A new law will discount the vote for a race on a ballot if the voter has voted for more candidates than there are seats open in the race. To help voters double-check their votes, some counties will get machines that will read the ballots and tell voters where they made errors.

Public comments on voting changes can be made on the secretary of state's Web site at www.sos.mt.gov; by e-mail at soion@mt.gov; or by mail to P.O. Box 202801, Helena, MT 59620-2801.