Samuel Fields views himself as a sensible and reasoned Fort Lauderdale lawyer, but others thought his crusade against electronic voting was crazy.
For two years, Fields has waged a campaign against the touch-screen voting machines embraced by much of Florida and many other places in the nation. He argued in letters-to-the-editor, speeches and to anyone who would listen that the devices are just another computer -- prone to failure and subject to fraud.
"I felt like I was a voice in the wilderness and one step from being considered a nut job," Fields said.
Fields' complaint is that touch-screen machines don't provide a paper record of each vote to create a safeguard against elections being manipulated.
Today, Fields is not alone. Skepticism is increasing throughout the nation and in Congress about initial claims that touch-screen voting is all but immune to fraud. That was the pitch that helped sell the machines.
Broward County commissioners are studying whether to dump the touch-screen machines that cost them $17.2 million in favor of the older system of optical scanners, which are far less costly and maintain a paper trail. They have also asked county staffers to research the feasibility of adding printers to the touch-screen machines.
Either fix would cost Broward taxpayers millions of dollars, although the precise amount is not known. Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant said last week that retrofitting the machines to create paper ballots "will be a costly endeavor" and would not commit herself to recommending such a move.
In Miami-Dade County, Democrats are demanding a system of paper ballots that could act as a backup for the touch-screen machines. County commissioners asked staff to present them with a proposal within four months.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore, however, contends no change is needed. She said the machines are reliable and a paper trail in unnecessary.
The market for new election systems blossomed after the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential race. Politicians peered at punch cards and argued whether voters intended to cast their ballots for Al Gore or George W. Bush.
The next year, the Florida Legislature outlawed punch-card machines.
Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties decided to replace the old machines with new touch-screen devices that work like a bank ATM. Touch-screens were billed as easier for the voter to use, more accurate and versatile.
Even critics agree the machines have those attributes, but worry that the vote count is stored only on the machines' computer hard drives. There is no paper record.
When using the older but tested technology of optical scanners, voters blacken bubbles on a ballot, which is then fed into a reader that counts the votes. The method is similar to the system used in schools for standardized tests.
Discussed, and dropped
One advantage of optical scanners is that the paper ballot filled out by voters is preserved. That benefit was discussed, but eventually ignored when the three counties bought the touch-screen machines.
Now the issue of a paper trail is resurfacing.
"The truth of the matter is that a number of universities have now started to look at this and they have considered the fact that not having hard copies is, in fact, a threat," Fields said.
Dozens of university professors, the Communications Workers of America, the Wisconsin state elections board and the Illinois Legislature have called for voting machines to have paper ballots as a backup. The California Ad Hoc Touch-Screen Task Force called for a paper trail in its July report.
New law proposed
"Without a physical record of votes cast, how will election officials in 2004 be able to launch an effective, honest record in a closely contested election?" asked U.S. Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey in May.
Holt is sponsoring a bill that would require voting machines to have a permanent record. He has 40 co-sponsors, including U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton.
State Rep. Chris Smith also thinks voting machines should have a paper trail. Smith, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat who was on the House elections committee when the punch-card machines were prohibited, says a trail is critical to public confidence in the voting process.
"You will have every computer hacker in the world claiming they fixed the Florida election next year," Smith said.
But some election experts like the new machines.
Pasco County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning, who bought the same Election Systems & Software touch-screens used in Broward, said the machines contain internal protections against tampering. They save the votes in multiple memories so officials can double-check the numbers. The computer coding is also secure, available only to the manufacturer and the state elections division. ES&S machines do not use the Internet, which make them largely immune to hacking.
`Handful of people'
He said a recount is possible with the machines. In a close race, he would have his staff go to each machine and download the votes again and then add the numbers by calculator. Also, his office could compare the total votes cast to the sign-in logs at the polls.
"They are listening to a handful of vocal people who are doing a huge disservice to voters by casting doubt on the voting systems," Browning said. "When voters don't have confidence in the system, they stay home on Election Day. A paper receipt would prove absolutely nothing."
The difference of opinion worries David Cardwell, a former director of the state elections division.
Cardwell fears a contested election next year could end up in court with dueling computer technicians debating the reliability of the machinery. And he says the state has opened itself up to the same constitutional arguments that prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the recount in 2000 because the counties with ATM-style voting could not really have a tangible paper recount of their votes while other counties with optical scanners would.
Florida Republican leaders have so far rejected any attempt to require a paper record of voting as a waste of money.
Geoffrey Becker, executive director of the state Republican Party, said the revamped Florida elections system is the envy of the nation. "Why put more money into a system that's already been fixed?" he said.
"It's a bipartisan issue," Wexler countered. "Republican officials unwilling to the join the issue? It boggles my mind."
A large expense
The only thing everybody agrees on is that paper ballots are going to cost a lot of money. Even the voting machine manufacturers cannot estimate how much at this point.
ES&S sold more than 5,000 machines to Broward and more than 7,000 to Miami-Dade. Palm Beach County's machines are made by Sequoia Voting Systems.
John Groh, senior vice president of ES&S, said his machines are safe and secure. He said that there is no device approved by the state Elections Division that would produce a paper trail for touch-screen machines, so there is no way to estimate the costs.
"We have no technical requirements so we don't know what to build," Groh said. "No one has set specifications."
Murray Hirsh, a senior citizen who lobbied the Broward County commission in favor of touch-screen voting in 2001, is appalled by the debate over the machines. He aims his criticism at the Broward commissioners.
"Are they going to squander all the money they spent?" Hirsh asked. "This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've heard, going to optical scan. The County Commission didn't do their homework last year and now are making one mistake after another."
Buddy Nevins can be reached at bnevins@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4571.
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