By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

In a move sure to influence other states, California is headed toward letting voters double-check their electronic votes with paper records.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley is expected to announce today a timetable for California counties to offer a voter-verified paper trail as a backup to computerized voting.

Advocates called Shelley's decision "historic." They said e-voting is so vulnerable to software flaws and digital vote tampering that voters need reassur-ance their votes are recorded accurately.

"It's huge," said Bev Harris, a Seattle-based investigator of e-voting systems and author of "Black Box Voting."

"California is one of those barometer states. In fact, if California does it, I think it's going to ricochet across the country almost immediately."

E-voting manufacturers and many elections officials are sour on the idea, saying it adds unnecessary cost, complication and delay to modern voting. Board members of the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials held an emergency conference call Thursday night and unanimously agreed to oppose the idea.

"There's absolutely no evidence of any problems with the accuracy of the current, certified electronic voting systems," said Conny McCormack, the association's vice president and registrar for Los Angeles County.

"The critics who are calling for the voter verified paper trail have offered hypothetical comments about what might or could potentially occur, with no evidence," she said. "There's simply no justification for putting a dark cloud over an elections system that has been certified by the Federal Elections Commission."

Yet critics note that U.S. computerized voting systems are tested and certified in a secretive process that doesn't allow outside experts to review the software for bugs and security holes. One security consultant who examined software for Diebold Election Systems machines found dozens of flaws and potential security vulnerabilities.

Wisconsin became first in the country to pass a law requiring voter-verified paper ballots. But the decision in California, by virtue of the state's market power, will force the production of new, printer-equipped machines and prod other states to require them.

"If Secretary Shelley requires a paper trail, it will create a market for this security feature," said Kim Alexander, head of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "It will be viewed by elections officials in other states as the start of a new trend."

Until now, the debate over mandatory paper trails has been stymied by what Stanford computer-science professor David Dill calls a classic "chicken-and-egg problem."

Manufacturers said they would not develop the machines to print a paper record because no government required them; governments said they would not require them because no manufacturer made them.

"Now everyone will know those products will be available and that's going to make a big difference," said Dill, who was among a minority that recommended paper trails in July, while serving on a state task force on touchscreen voting machines. He thinks states will embrace the idea.

"I think it's the most important insurance policy" for e-voting, he said. "The problem is electronic voting puts too much reliance on the computer technology and as a computer technologist I know the technology is not that reliable."

Only one vendor, Avante, makes computerized voting machines that show a printed record to voters. But the three largest all are working on similar machines, which will feature a glass window through which voters can see and verify a printed version of their ballot. They will have a choice of accepting the ballot or rejecting it and voting again. At the end of balloting, elections officials will have a verified paper record to check against the electronic vote count.

Elections officials say that will slow down voting and produce longer lines at polling places problems that e-voting was intended to solve.

Alameda County Brad Clark was one of the first elections officials in California to embrace e-voting. He says voters love it but may not be as happy when waiting for other voters to proofread ballots containing dozens of races and referenda.

"How long do you think the lines are going to be? It's going to be awful," Clark said. "I just think this is overkill. We've worked to bring elections into the 20th century and this takes us back to the 19th century."

But not all elections officials agree. San Mateo County chief elections officer Walter Slocum said his county decided against buying electronic voting machines until they offer a paper trail.

"It's a matter of increased voter confidence and increased election integrity," said Slocum, who authors a blog on elections systems and the paper trail. "I'm not as concerned about rogue programmers and viruses as honest, human programming error and software glitches. I think the paper trail acts as an early warning system for those."

Slocum says other California elections officials are right: Voter-verified paper ballots will add complexity and cost.

"But democracy isn't cheap and we ought to do it right," he said.

Contact Ian Hoffman at

ihoffman@angnewspapers.com