County goes with optical scan
By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer

The people spoke, and government listened. Officials from the Boulder County Clerk's office announced Friday that they decided against purchasing Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines for the 2004 election.

On Friday, members of a county Voter Equipment Review Committee met at the Clerk's office expecting to vote for the best DRE system out of products offered by four vendors. Tom Halicki, county election manager, explained that concerns over security, recount procedures and federal standards pertaining to DRE's led to their decision.

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows," said Halicki. "We won't be ing a DRE system at this time."

DRE's record votes electronically, and most do not produce a paper ballot. Citizens for Verifiable Voting (CVV) expressed concern that without a paper ballot, voters could not verify that the machine recorded their votes properly.

Also, CVV contends that under state law, a recount must be conducted on the same media on which the original vote is cast. Paper ballots would allow for a hand count if the electronic tabulation was questionable.

Boulder County will use paper ballots in 2004, which will be tabulated by optical scanners. According to Halicki, input from CVV factored in the decision.

"I think we all agree on the need for a voter-verifiable paper ballot, although we might not agree on how to get there," said Halicki.

Next, county officials will a scan system, and decide whether to purchase or lease it. Also, the county will need to decide whether to use small scanners at each of the 228 precincts in Boulder County, or to transport ballots to larger scanners in central locations.

According to Nancy Wurl, assistant county clerk, the decision will come soon.

"We have minimal money to work with, and I'd be very surprised if we leased," said Wurl. "With whatever system we choose, we will need to be able to get ourselves up to speed with it, along with our election judges, and we'll need to do a wholesale education process for the voters."

CVV asked the county to delay purchasing DRE's in part because National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has not completed standards for electronic voting machines.

Currently, state governments, using standards from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), are certifying voting systems, but CVV believes that flaws discovered in some certified systems make waiting for NIST standards a prudent decision.

Optical scan systems read paper ballots, but tabulate the votes electronically. After the 2003 election, it was discovered that a software system used by Boulder County was not certified by the state.

Pezzillo said that CVV might ask the county to delay purchasing a scan system until NIST standards are completed.

The county will need to integrate their scan system with any electronic system purchased for future elections. Also, the county could need to integrate its system with a statewide voter registration system that could be in place by 2006.

According to Wurl, the county would its scan system from one of the four vendors being considered for the county's DRE contract. They are Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting Systems, Avante International Technology, and Hart InterCivic.

On Friday, the Review Committee discussed the DRE systems. Five of the eight committee members informally said they preferred the "eSlate," by Hart InterCivic. Members said eSlate offered greater ease of use and a smaller size that could offer more privacy in a voting booth, compared to other systems.

No formal vote was taken.

According to Pezzillo, CVV plans to expand its efforts to the state level.

"Now, we plan to work collaboratively with the clerks to see what can be done about the Colorado recount law. We intend to contact (State Rep.) Alice Madden and (State Sen.) Moe Keller, who we understand may be working on legislation on this issue," said Pezzillo.