Virginia group pushes voting equipment with paper audit

BY TYLER WHITLEY
Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH
Aug 23, 2005

Virginia's voting machine of choice got a going-over yesterday from a grass-roots group and computer experts.
 

Wearing orange ribbons, representatives of Virginia Verified Voting, an Arlington County-based group, said the state should require a verifiable paper audit trail in its voting machines.

Otherwise, the public will lose confidence in the political process, Amy Kershoff, a former Henrico County teacher making her first public speech, told a joint legislative subcommittee studying the certification and deployment of voting equipment.

Under the federal Help America Vote Act, Virginia has received more than $30 million to buy new voting equipment to replace the outmoded mechanical-lever and punch-card voting machines, the latter of which were prominent in the 2000 Florida election fiasco.

The machines must be replaced by the first of next year. Most Virginia localities have turned to touch-screen machines that don't have a paper trail. The State Board of Elections, which must approve all the machines bought in Virginia, has resisted a rush to paper audits, saying they are unreliable.

"We chose to proceed carefully and await the results of this study," said Jean Jensen, secretary of the State Board of Elections.

But a succession of speakers said yesterday the technology is available to make sure voters know who they are voting for when they are casting their votes. In an audit, a box attached to the touch-screen machine would emit a paper slip, much as a grocery store receipt. The paper audit also lends itself to a recount, they said.

The touch-screen machines "are a disaster," said Alice Marshall of Fairfax County, a daughter of the late Del. Mary A. Marshall, D-Arlington. "The programs frequently go awry."

Without a paper record, the public will be skeptical of the voting process, several speakers said.

The study committee, headed by Del. Timothy D. Hugo, R-Fairfax, who heads a computer consulting firm, has been studying the issue for two years. The committee plans to make recommendations prior to the 2006 General Assembly session.

While bashing the touch-screen equipment, several speakers praised the optical-scan equipment, in which a voter marks a space, much as in academic tests. The electronic machine then scans that mark and records it, leaving a paper record.

Chesterfield County chose the optical-scan equipment, while Richmond and Henrico are moving to the touch-screen equipment.