Diebold responds to e-voting stories

Guest Commentary     David Byrd, Diebold    01 September 2005
CALIFORNIA Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has implemented a thorough and widespread certification process to ensure all electronic voting machines comply fully with state and federal laws.

We at Diebold Election Systems have worked tirelessly with McPherson's office to make sure our machines are certified after the next round of testing. We look forward to meeting strict standards and delivering voting machines that protect every Californian's vote.

Diebold Election Systems recently included 96 touch-screen voting machines in one of the secretary of state's certification tests. Your coverage of that certification process repeatedly has misrepresented the result ? most recently in articles Aug. 20 and Aug. 25.

In that certification test, 10,720 votes were recorded on the 96 voting machines with 100 percent accuracy. Individual testers stood at a single machine and submitted as many ballots as possible in a short amount of time. Not a single ballot submission was lost, and not a single vote was ruled invalid.

A more accurate reporting of the machine's success rate would include that of 10,720 votes cast on Diebold Election System touchscreen machines, 32 ballots were cast despite technical problems, and still the vote was not lost or ruled invalid. That's a failure rate of less than 1 percent.

It is true that some machines experienced paper jams and screen freezes, a problem we are fixing now. But your coverage inaccurately labeled a machine that experienced a single problem as a failed machine.

It is incorrect to describe one machine that successfully processes dozens of ballots an immediate failure just because it experienced a paper jam or a screen freeze. Those problems are easily remedied, and when they occur, the ballot is not lost or ruled invalid.

Any Californian with a desktop printer knows that a paper jam does not mean the machine is a failure. Likewise, when a monitor freezes, it does not mean the computer is labeled a failure.

The fact is that the machines now comply with state law by producing a paper trail, a printed record that corresponds with what voters cast electronically.

No voting system is perfect. Punch cards, mechanical lever machines, optical scan and plain old-fashioned paper ballots all have problems, and they all lose votes.

But according to half a dozen studies, including one from Caltech and MIT, your vote is most likely to be safeguarded and counted if you vote on a touch-screen machine.

Dave Byrd is vice president of business operations for Diebold Election Systems.