Optical-scan voting system OK'd
By Mark Schlinkmann
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/24/2005

The St. Charles County Council on Monday signed off on a new optical-scan voting system that could be in use at polling places as soon as February.

The council voted 5-1 to award a contract of $832,050 for new voting machines and tabulators, and the council rejected alternatives offered by an opposition group that warned that the new system could be more vulnerable to mistakes and fraud.

Council members relied on assurances by state and federal election officials about the safety of the system, proposed by county Elections Director Rich Chrismer.

"You are the elected official, and I'm not going to oppose your recommendation," said council Chairman Doug Funderburk, 4th District.

Under the plan, voters will use special markers on paper ballots that are scanned and tabulated at polling places. That data would be on a memory card and taken from each precinct to election headquarters for counting.

Councilman Jeff Morrison, 1st District, said he was reassured by the fact that the paper ballots would be retained and could be checked.

Members of Missourians for Honest Elections had called previously on the county to return to hand counting of paper ballots, a practice phased out 25 years ago. They said that system would be the safest.

Realizing that the council was unlikely to approve that, the group on Monday proposed alternatives. One would be a modified optical-scan system in which all the ballots would be counted at a central location, eliminating scanning at the polling place.

"A centralized system reduces the number of complex computer-based systems that must be purchased, and reduces the chances that such systems will malfunction or intentionally be made to misrepresent the vote," said Richard Lesh, a consultant to the group, in a memo to county officials. He said his proposal also would cost much less.

Lesh is an assistant professor of information systems at Lindenwood University.

Chrismer responded that the group's proposal would prevent the county from complying with a federal law requiring voters to be able to review and revise their ballots. Under the plan adopted by the council, the scanning device at the polling place will kick back a ballot that includes votes for two candidates running for the same office and will let the voter mark a new ballot.

The only councilman voting against Chrismer's proposal was Dan Foust, 6th District. He questioned why the county couldn't continue to use the current punch-card system. He also worried that the new system would become obsolete in a few years.

Joining Funderburk and Morrison in supporting the plan were Joe Brazil, 2nd District; Bob Schnur, 3rd District; and John White, 7th District. They, like Foust, are Republicans. The council's only Democrat, Joseph McCulloch of the 5th District, was absent.

Chrismer proposed the change because of federal mandates adopted in 2002. The federal rules don't require that punch cards be junked but make it difficult and costly for local governments to keep them.

Federal grants would cover about three fourths of the overall $1.7 million cost of the changeover.