Are the new voting machines worse?

"Turn Ballot Over To Continue Voting."

I gotta tell you, those words send a little shiver down my spine, as I think of Florida's ghosts of undervotes past. And yet, after watching four companies demonstrate their optical-scan ballot systems on Tuesday at the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Office, I can see how we are going to be trading one set of problems for another.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the key and fatal flaw of touch-screen voting machines: There is no physical record of the ballot -- no complete "paper trail." In the end, there was enough agreement from most parties that a democracy ought to have that kind of permanent record. So our Legislature has ordered the touch screens replaced.

With each of the four optical-scan systems demonstrated (the only four to be certified by the state, or in the process of being certified) voters are handed a paper ballot. They go to a row of privacy booths (like we have now, and we had with the old punch cards) and they mark their ballot with a dark pen or special marker provided. Then they take their ballot to a central scanner and stick it in, like feeding a piece of paper into a printer or fax. The scanner rejects their ballot if they haven't filled out any races correctly (say, circling names instead of filling out the circles) or have voted twice in the same race; otherwise it accepts it and dumps it into a secure bin beneath.

Yet our touch-screen machines also had certain virtues that the optical-scan ballots can't match. Here are some potential problems:

* Two-sided paper ballots that will again make the ballot layout (remember the butterfly!) and the placement of a race on the ballot critical factors. Not to mention the fact that voters have to remember to turn the page.

* No undervote warning. The touch-screens remind you that you haven't cast a ballot in all races and give you a second chance to change your mind. The optical scanners CAN be programmed to reject ballots with undervotes, but since undervotes are so common, and there would usually be only one scanner in each precinct, there's a potential for backups and frustration.

* No ballot review. Unlike touch-screens, only one of the four systems provides a visual review of the ballot after it's been scanned. The one system that allows a visual review brings us back to the same problem of long lines -- imagine a busy precinct with only one scanner, and each voter standing there poring over his or her ballot after feeding it into the scanner!

* The same security issues. As with touch screens, we still come down to a computer in each precinct scanning the ballots and reporting a claimed result. And with all four systems, we're talking about telephone modems phoning in the results to a central headquarters. The presentations Tuesday were too brief to get into all the security measures; I'm sure they have them. But in the end, voting is still an act of faith that the precinct scanner has done its job. For the conspiracy theorists out there, there's still the possibility that the machines could be programmed internally to monkey around. We still haven't standardized our laws for who gets access to the machines and the relationships between vendors and each county elections office. But the one sure-fire advantage is that we have paper ballots to double-check; we just need to make sure that our laws let us take full advantage of them.

Sorry to sound like a naysayer. Remember that of Florida's 67 counties, only 15 have been using touch-screens since the Big Switch after the 2000 elections; the rest are already using some variety of optical-scan with generally good results. On the other hand, we are talking about yet another new voting system for Florida's largest 15 counties, for the most part. It is hard to imagine a future without controversies over undervotes, ballot layout and so forth.

Comments

I wish someone would look at Oregon's system. It's a mail-in system, and frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't caught on here, given our elderly population, and others who may have a harder time getting around.

[Kay]

Would a "none of the above" or "no vote by choice" selection solve the undervote problem?

[Bill Northrop]

Some other questions: how does the scanner handle smudges or inadvertent pen marks on the ballot? And, like old paper ballots, can't these be purposely ( and fraudently) marked in a recount? Or, would this be a scanned recount?
Hate to say it, but punch ballots do work if officials clean out the bin. Also, isn't the under vote problem over-blown? I've used paper ballots, levered voting, punch cards, and touch screens. Got to rank punch and touchers as the best.

[guy]

Howard good article ~~ we should not be scrapping these new machines, just upgrade them to print out the votess

[ed]

reading about this, i have to chuckle! did i read correctly that only 11% of the potential voters voted in a recent st. pete election?? maybe everyone should be able to vote by phone[with a password,etc.] & forget all these machines-sadly, it seems most people don't care!!

[Boo Boo]

This Country that was supposed to set the standard is a joke when it comes to voting.
1) We don't vote.
2) When we do, we can't count them without controversy.
3) We vote on Tuesday? I work on Tuesday!
4) The people we vote for turn out to be crooks.
But I'll vote anyway it makes me feel good and think my vote counted.