Deadline looms to replace voting machines
By Alison Hawkes,    Uniontown Herald-Standard
08/17/2005
  

HARRISBURG - In the first massive replacement of Pennsylvania's decades-old voting machines, county officials say they are on a tight four-month deadline to decide which machines to purchase because of late state certification.
The county decisions will affect voting systems for years to come and will cost millions of local tax dollars, even with the addition of federal funding. As of this week, the state has certified one machine for purchase, and state officials expect to take at least another couple of weeks to decide on certification of the remaining seven. Another, the Avante Vote-Trakker, has been denied certification.  
     
That leaves four months for counties to do their own reviews of the certified systems, make choices and purchase the machines by a January deadline, when federal mandates on voting machine upgrades take effect.

At best, county officials say the timeline is close but doable, since some already have a short list of machines under consideration, pending state certification.

"We are really cutting it close," said Amy Beisel, spokeswoman for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. "However, most of the counties have their short list of vendors ... and the wheels can be turned once that happens."

At worst, voting integrity advocates fear the abbreviated timeline will lead to hasty decisions the public will later regret. At the heart of their concerns, too, is the state's refusal to require that certified electronic machines produce a paper backup to ballots for the purposes of a recount.

Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley said that, given questions of voter integrity and others, he's asked that the January deadline be pushed back a year so that his county has more time to make a well-informed decision on what will replace its Eisenhower-era lever machines. A delay would need to come from Congress.

"My job is to make sure the machines are screened properly and getting the right results, and if that takes longer than January 1, too bad. We have to do it right," Cawley said. "The integrity of the process is more important than meeting some artificial deadline."

A similar concern comes from Greene, Beaver, and Mercer counties, where electronic touch-screen machines used in the November election were decertified after a suspicious undercount of the presidential vote. There, the certification process is an even more open-ended question since it will determine if those three counties need to purchase new machines entirely or can make use with upgraded and corrected versions of the malfunctioned UniLect Patriot.

"I guess we will have to do it in the time allotted," said Francis Pratt, Greene County's elections director. "We are in a wait and see mode."

Pratt said her preference is to see UniLect reinstated, insisting that there were "no problems with that system" in the election, even as state elections officials determined otherwise.

In response to complaints, Pennsylvania Department of State spokesman Brian McDonald countered that counties will still have enough time to choose, and that the state department is doing the heavy lifting in the certification process.

"To be honest, we're in more of a crunch than they are," McDonald said. "They're not examining systems to ensure they meet the elections code. They're doing it based on their budgets and what's best for their voters. Essentially, it's just a matter of shopping for a car - you see what's best for you."

He added that federal delays in providing information about the 2000 Help America Vote Act, as well as the late formation of a federal independent testing authority to handle federal certification of machines, are the reasons Pennsylvania has been pushed to August in its certification timetable.

Still, with new machines costing counties millions of dollars, the decision for counties is an expensive one that officials say needs careful consideration.

Fayette County's tab for new machines is expected to be $1.25 million, taking into account the $8,000 per precinct it's entitled to receive from federal sources.

Fayette County Commissioner Angela Zimmerlink, who is also calling for a delay in choosing machines, said she'd rather keep the county's lever machines under the circumstances.

"This is something new to Fayette County. We're used to the lever, and they were working fine," she said.

Under new federal law, lever machines cannot be used anymore, in part to adhere to standards for the disabled, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. The state permits but strongly discourages the use of the infamous punchcard machines used in Florida, and their use would mean a forfeit of federal funding.

Counties already using electronic voting machines are permitted to continue doing so, but upgrades will need to be certified, McDonald said.

Part of remaining concerns comes from voting integrity advocates, who argue that the state is certifying electronic machines without requiring a paper backup of ballots that could be used in a potential recount. The state election code makes no provision for what's known as a verified voter paper audit trail. The one voting machine certified so far - AccuPoll - was approved on the condition that its paper backup feature be disabled because state officials found several security problems.

"We are saying the First Amendment entitles us to proof that our ballot is properly cast," said Mary Ann Gould of the Bucks County Coalition for Voting Integrity. "Our whole democracy is based upon that vote, and if you cannot prove that vote, have we really voted?"

Rep. Paul Clymer (R-Bucks) said he's bringing such concerns to an upcoming meeting with Secretary of State Pedro Cortez. Among the other questions he has is what language, if any, in the Help America Vote Act requires that lever machines must go.

"We're trying to get those questions answered," he said.