Counties await voting machines
By Paul Ferguson    Portage Daily Register    21 November 2005

 County clerks in Marquette and Columbia counties foresee difficulties as the state switches to new voting machines and procedures brought about by the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

When Congress and the president approved the Help America Vote Act, it wasn't their intention to have poll workers hover over ballots determining voter intent in future elections as workers did in Florida in 2000.

But that might be the effect in Columbia County this spring thanks to Wisconsin's struggle to comply with the federal law, known as HAVA.

The problem is twofold. First, the county has had problems with its two voting machines in nearly every election since 2003. While it seems a no-brainer to simply purchase new machines, those ballot readers tally votes in Portage from across the county. That central count is somewhat discouraged under the new mandates of HAVA, County Clerk Jeanne Miller said. 
 
After the Florida debacle in 2000, HAVA required that an election official be able to determine voter intent in case of a problem with a ballot. A central count, then, is a problem, because the voter is far away from the process and unable to clarify a question if a machine detects votes for more than one candidate for one office.

Under HAVA, a voter must be given the chance to correct such a ballot before it's counted.

New machines that meet that federal guideline are being developed, and Miller said all but eight of the county's 35 municipalities are planning to buy their own ballot counters next year. But the Wisconsin State Elections Board and voting machine manufacturers have hit delays in getting the new voting machines approved. The State Elections Board, according to its Web site, received applications for approval from four companies. Two companies' applications are pending, another's was withdrawn and a fourth was rejected.

Columbia County is waiting on the company that withdrew its application, Election Systems & Software, Miller said, because an advisory committee of municipal clerks from around the county decided earlier this year that the ES&S prototype would be better than others.

Now with the delay in approving voting machines, ES&S will have a high demand to fill throughout the state, Miller said, and Columbia County may not have new machines for either the February or April elections in 2006. That means the county's first run on new HAVA-compliant machines will be this fall during important state and federal elections, Miller said.

"It's not the most ideal circumstances," she said. "We'll definitely work with it, and the equipment will be
tested every which way possible and hopefully everybody will be trained."

In the mean time, no money is budgeted for maintenance of the county's current central ballot counters, because Miller planned on having the new machines for next year when the county budgeting process started this summer.

In February, if the county's 15-year-old machines fail, "we'll end up doing a manual count," Miller said.

How to serve disabled?

Miller said Columbia County is in a uniquely sticky position until new machines arrive because of its woes with its current election equipment. Marquette County, on the other hand, is perhaps facing a difficult situation after machines arrive.

Marquette County is able to print paper ballots for about $8,000 in a presidential election year, Clerk Jim Thalacker said. The whole county of about 15,000 people counts votes by hand.

Another federal mandate is that polling places operate special electronic voting machines for the disabled. The state is supposed to pick up the initial costs of these machines, but after that, maintaining and running the machines every election could increase the cost of running what is otherwise a simple electoral process, Thalacker said.

"It's a real cost that we don't need, and then having it mandated at a time when they froze taxes what do you cut to put a voting machine in a polling place that we don't need?" he said.

"To have to spend $500 or $600 to program that machine for that election just so handicapped people can use it seems to be a little outrageous when we already have things in place we can use," he said. Poll workers now assist those who need help marking a paper ballot.

HAVA doesn't allow that because it would compromise the privacy and independence of a voter.

Thalacker said offsetting the cost by consolidating polling places might help, but that could force some people to travel farther to vote, which could depress turnout. Routing all voters through a disabled-access voting machine might eliminate the need for paper ballots, he also said, but congestion during high-turnout elections would make both paper and electronic voting likely.

"Just having the machine is not bad. I welcome machines. I'd like to see them. But the cost is unrealistic in Marquette County," he said.

Voter registration lags

The second problem facing the 2006 elections is the troubled statewide voter registration list contracted out to Accenture LLP, a private management consultation and technology services company. Due to bugs in the computer software programming for the statewide voter list, Wisconsin will miss its Jan. 1, 2006, deadline for statewide implementation of the list.

It also appears that could jeopardize federal funding for the project, Miller said, but the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated states making a good-faith effort to comply with the law won't necessarily lose funding.

The State Elections Board has begun testing the statewide voter registration list in Dane County and will begin in other parts of the state this year, according to board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy. Miller said once online, it will be a very useful "elections management tool," containing information for elections officials about candidates and polling places in addition to voter lists.

"I'm 100 percent behind the voter registration (list). I think that's going to be really good when it gets going," Thalacker said.

So in spite of the delay, "I don't see it as being an issue, as long as it's done by April," Miller said. Elections officials may have slimmer timeframes to weed out errors and print out poll lists for precincts, but she said it shouldn't be an issue as long as it's done far enough in advance.