E-voting doesn't beat paper ballots, state officials decide

ASSOCIATED PRESS    30 July 2005

SACRAMENTO - California election officials have rejected an electronic voting machine by Diebold after tests revealed unacceptable levels of screen freezes and paper jams.

The news is creating some anxiety in Alameda County, which had hoped to use the voting machines in question for next year's June primary.

Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said Friday that paper jams and other problems reported in a recent round of tests involving Diebold's AccuVote TSX machines have her seriously thinking about using paper ballots with optical scanners rather than touch-screen devices.

"We have to look at all the options available to us," she said.

Three counties already have purchased the TSX voting machines, which were found to have a failure rate of 10 percent in tests conducted in Stockton last week. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said that was too high a risk and he notified company officials in a letter sent Wednesday.

That throws a wrench into plans in Alameda County, which is negotiating a $6 million deal with Diebold to exchange its 4,000 touch-screen machines for the same number of TSXs.

The plan comes in response to new mandates that take effect Jan. 1 requiring all touch-screen voting machines in California to come equipped with printers so that voters can verify their votes. The printer component is one of the selling points pushed by Diebold in its marketing of the TSX.

Ginnold took part in last week's mock election in which 96 TSX machines were tested.

The state withdrew certification for some of Diebold's e-voting equipment in April 2004 after then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley found those systems unreliable because they lacked a paper trail.

The state was testing the touch-screen voting machines before re-certifying the system.

North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems Inc. plans to fix the problems and will reapply for California approval, said company spokesman David Bear.

San Joaquin, Kern and San Diego counties already have purchased the TSX system, the secretary of state's office said, spending $40 million on 13,000 machines that have been warehoused since 2003. Alameda is one of several other counties poised to buy the machines if approved.

Ginnold said Diebold officials were "confident" the troubles encountered in last week's test could be easily fixed. She is hopeful certification will be granted sometime in September.

But if there are further delays, she said, Alameda County will probably be forced to consider other options, including using paper ballots counted through optical scanners to record the lion's share of votes.

Alameda still would probably have to use some touch-screen devices, Ginnold said, in order to meet new federal mandates to make voting more accessible to the disabled.