Protecting election integrity

MARY KIFFMEYER   Opinion   Twin Cities Pioneer Press   04 December 2005

Recently, an article appeared in the Pioneer Press regarding Minnesota's rejection of certification of an election system called a Direct Recording Electronic voting system, which is ballot-less, produced by Diebold ("Kiffmeyer, counties at odds over voting equipment," Nov. 30). This system failed certification in California because of receipt jams and computer crashes. This system is not good enough for Minnesota, either, and I'd like to tell you why.

Minnesota has a paper ballot tradition ? a well-established and well-functioning tradition. Most voters agree that changing to some kind of "electronic" ballot that you can't see would be unsettling. Especially in election recounts, we like to have actual paper ballots, marked by voters, to verify the validity of elections.

A "receipt" of an electronic transaction like that produced by a DRE voting machine is not a ballot. It's like when you go to the cash machine: the receipt you get is not the $20 bill you requested, no matter what the receipt told you the machine produced. On the topic of DRE voting systems, the League of Women Voters has written, "Simply because a voter verifies their vote on a piece of paper does not guarantee the same results have been recorded within the machine and vice versa."

The bottom line: Paper ballots are better than DRE vote receipts.

The DRE system that Diebold recently proposed for certification isn't certified at the federal level for the use proposed in Minnesota, so it cannot be certified in Minnesota, anyway.

And, even if it were to be certified at the federal level, Minnesota statutes require additionally that an electronic voting system:

1. Accept and tabulate an optical scan ballot,

2. Create a marked optical scan ballot, or

3. Securely transmit a ballot electronically to automatic tabulating equipment in the polling place while creating a paper record of each vote on the ballot. The DRE submitted for certification does none of these things.

It should be understood that the reason we're even looking at new voting systems is that a new federal law requires the installation of voting equipment to allow people with disabilities to vote privately and independently by Jan. 1.

Four Minnesota counties ? Anoka, Dakota, Ramsey, and Washington ? were counting on Diebold to invent a good system, compatible with their existing ballot scanners, so it is unfortunate the company did not deliver.

Fortunately, there is an alternative for these four counties, and that is the Election Systems & Software Automark machine, which is being certified, and which is proving to be a great alternative for the other 83 counties in the state.

It also should be understood that the new disability voting equipment is fully funded by federal grants. For the four counties currently using Diebold ballot scanners, integrating the Automark would use up a bit more of their federal appropriations, but the cost would still be fully covered, with money left to spare.

Besides, I think we can all agree that in Minnesota we're about doing the best elections, not the cheapest. We all saw what happened in 2000 when one Florida county tried to trim costs by implementing a "butterfly" ballot.

Finally, I'd like to say, we're all in this together. While I sympathize with officials in Anoka, Dakota, Ramsey, and Washington counties, we must do what is in the best interest of voters, which is to have paper ballots, not unproven DRE machines.

Certainly funding is a concern, but election security and taking care of the voters are far more important.

Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake Township, is Minnesota's Secretary of State.