No excuse for foot-dragging on fair elections

Martin L. Haines   Asbury Park Press 07/7/05

Justified concerns about the fairness and accuracy of voting ma- chines used throughout the country reflect an election crisis. The central problem: the absence of a paper trail reflecting individual votes cast, which will permit voters to double check their votes before they are recorded while permitting meaningful recounts.

A recent incident in Essex County exposes the public's unease. The county freeholders were about to approve a $7.5 million bond issue for the purchase of new digital recording electronic voting machines. The reaction: passionate public objections because the digital machines did not provide a paper trail. The result: the bond proposal was rejected.

According to the Verified Voting Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to promoting reliable public elections, there were 42,000 reports of voting irregularities in the 2004 presidential election. They included incidents of intimidation, suppression and misrepresentation, underlining the urgent need for reform.

Congress attempted reform when it adopted the Help America Vote Act. It required the purchase and use of voting machines in every jurisdiction in the country and provided money to finance purchases. But it did not specify any particular machine, and left implementation to the states and localities. Many jurisdictions responded promptly, too often unwisely, spending millions of dollars for inadequate machines.

Well before the presidential election, many people expressed general concerns about voting machines. The absence of any requirements for their routine inspections and the secrecy of software undermine trust. The possibility of interference with machine results from hackers and even manufacturers was alarming. Irregularities have reinforced these concerns.

Touch-screen voting machines were purchased by many jurisdictions, a hasty choice because they lack the paper trail so strongly demanded by election system reformers. These machines, which make no record of individual votes cast and provide no way to check the accuracy of their recorded votes, make voters insecure. In addition, they do not permit genuine vote-by-vote recounts. When a recount is ordered, they simply play back the numbers originally reported.

Probably the best machine choice is an optical scanning machine. It is cheaper than touch-screen machines and provides a paper trail. Voters are given paper ballots. After the ballots have been marked (and, if voters wish, double checked) they are ed into a slot on the machine (either side up), which reads them and s the paper ballot into a secure tub under the machine. This provides voter security and permits ballot-by-ballot recounts.

But more than paper trails and recount mechanisms are needed. Machines and software should be subject to routine inspections by independent, qualified personnel, and to random checks while voting is in progress. The use of secret machines and secret software is totally incompatible with a fair, transparent election system. The secrecy of every individual vote is the only acceptable secrecy.

New laws assuring the security and transparency of voting systems are needed ? at the national level. Surprisingly, Congress has not acted despite considerable pressure and adequate time to do so. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., introduced reform legislation in 2004, well before the presidential election, that would provide the necessary voting safeguards. The bill was bottled up in the Committee on House Administration under scandalous rules that permit committee chairs to prevent the release of legislation. It was not adopted. Reintroduced Feb. 5 of this year with 141 sponsors, it continues to languish in the committee.

The states appear to be more interested in fair and accurate elections than Congress. In an obvious response to congressional inaction, 19 states have adopted reform. Fifteen states, including New Jersey (A2627 modeled after the Rush Holt bill), have legislation pending, and other states are expected to act favorably.

Reasons for congressional resistance to legislation that is clearly in the public interest are hard to find. There are problems. Appropriate legislation or regulations need to address laws that differ from state to state. Substantial costs for new machines or improvement of existing machines will be incurred. Standards must be established. The new Election Assistance Commission needs time to act. These problems have been a source of inexcusable past delay; they provide no excuse for future delay. They can be resolved in time to save the next election ? given the will.

Martin L. Haines, of Moorestown, is a retired Superior Court judge.