Snail balloting: County makes the best of a flawed system

November 9, 2003

Once upon a time, Americans with a sense of civic duty happily toddled over to their neighborhood polling place to have their small, but crucial, say in how government would run.

But now, we've been told, that requires too much effort. Given the steady decline of voter turnout, especially in local and state elections, many analysts concluded that voting just wasn't convenient enough.

Maybe people did get "too busy." Then again, when average Americans spend four hours in front of their televisions every day, maybe it's just a matter of priorities. These days, it seems, everything must be delivered to us like a pepperoni pizza.

Nevertheless, the era of "convenient" voting is here. In Boulder County, as in many other places, that means mail balloting. In off-year elections we now have ballots sent to our homes, where we can fill them out, affix proper postage, and send them in (or off at postage-free sites). Voters must still rise off the couch in Congressional election years.

The upshot in Boulder County has been a significant increase in voter turnout. In 2001, 46 percent of voters cast ballots, up from just 25 percent in 1999, the last pre-mail ballot, off-year election. Last week, 57 percent of county voters turned in ballots.

That's good news. But mail balloting still leaves a lot of people dissatisfied. Security remains a worry when many hands — from scads of postal workers to county staff and election judges — touch your ballot. Some voters have been surprised to learn that, for whatever reason, their ballot never arrived to be counted. Logistical issues, such as confusion over postage, have plagued some voters. And it's no cheaper than traditional elections.

Considering all that, the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office made a yeoman's effort to minimize problems this year. It pushed to get voters' signatures on file. Then, unlike some counties that tallied the vote without verifying even half the signatures, Boulder County verified every one. Up to 6,000 signatures had to be verified by hand, instead of by scanning devices (because the signatures were not on record).

This county also used a two-person system to open and handle the ballots, in an attempt to ensure that no person saw both the identity of a voter and how he or she voted.

That resulted in a molasses-slow count, which didn't conclude until late Thursday night.

We'll take security over speed any time. But it's worth noting that with the old system — Boulder County long used a surprisingly reliable "punch-card" system; no "chad" problems here — we didn't have to sacrifice speed for security. And remember, you could always vote by mail, by absentee ballot.

Now, get ready for even more changes. After Florida fiasco of 2000, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to supposedly stave off future snafus. Every county in the nation must adopt new technology by next year, including touch-screen computer voting at every precinct.

As elections become high-tech affairs, fewer average citizens will have the know-how to monitor them. Most fifth graders can count paper ballots, but few of us could audit software. In other words, the purity of every election will rest with a few skilled technicians. That's a little unsettling.

By mid-December, Boulder County should have ed its new voting system, after a long vetting process. The new machines — probably touch-screens — will be in use next fall.

This isn't the place for an analysis of concerns about touch-screen systems. We trust officials to choose the best system, but they must ensure maximum accountability.

In the meantime, there's this (thin) silver lining: Just maybe, with a slick, new e-voting system, we'll chuck the hassles of mail balloting, and voters will just have to reach out and touch some screen.