Testimony of Eric C. Olson
Deputy Director, Center for Voting and Democracy
Before the Maryland Special
Committee on Voting Systems and Procedure, January 4,
2001
Thank you, Secretary Willis, and members of
the committee for this opportunity to testify on voting systems and
procedures in the state of Maryland.
I am deputy director of the Center for Voting and
Democracy, a national non-partisan, non-profit organization that
studies elections - local, state, federal, and international - and
advocates reforms to promote increased participation as well as
strong and fair representation. We were founded in 1992, and are
Maryland-based - in the city of Takoma Park. Our Center's president
is former Congressman and presidential candidate, John B. Anderson.
We have particular expertise in alternative
election systems like instant runoff voting and forms of
proportional representation used within the United States and
throughout the democratic world, as well as in redistricting and
other areas. We have a keen understanding of the importance voting
equipment plays in selecting public officials - and for us it runs
far deeper than even the crucial issues illuminated about punchcards
and chads in Florida. The choice of voting technology can either
constrain voters and public officials from taking advantage of
election system advancements available today and in the future, or
it will provide flexibility. We hope the committee will recommend
equipment that gives us the greatest flexibility possible to improve
our voting systems in the future.
I have provided a number of attachments that
address more specifically some of the voting system reforms in which
we specialize like instant runoff voting and proportional
representation, and I have provided copies of fact sheets also
available on our website, www.fairvote.org, comparing and
contrasting various voting equipment, as well as other materials
that may interest the committee. Because much specific information
is available in these supplementary documents, I will be providing
more general comments in my testimony today, and I am available to
answer any questions today or in the future.
Modernizing our voting equipment will mark a
crucial step forward - both in restoring democratic confidence after
this divisive election, but also in moving away from antiquated
voting machines that can hold us back from implementing advanced,
fairer voting methods used in much of the rest of the world.
Only fifty percent of Americans vote in our most
important national elections - far fewer cast ballots in federal
off-presidential election years, and even fewer vote in state and
local elections. Important as it is to retain the trust of the fifty
percent who do vote, it is equally crucial to examine reforms that
will bring the rest of our citizens to the polls.
The Center for Voting and Democracy supports
efforts at the federal level and in the states to conduct a
comprehensive study of possible reforms such as voting by mail and
Internet, looking at ballot design, polling times and places, and
more. Purchasing new voting machines should be done in conjunction
with an eye toward the future direction of reforms - if, for
example, we expect to vote by mail en masse in the future, certain
machinery is better than others; if we expect to use instant runoff
voting, where voters rank candidates, we will want computerized
machines or optical scanners.
Election officials and lawmakers everywhere must
make it a priority to restore confidence that all votes cast in the
United States will be properly counted, and we commend the committee
and Governor Glendening for initiating that process here in
Maryland.
Voting Equipment Criteria
When we look at voting equipment we look at
several criteria, particularly: ease of use, speed,
reliability/accuracy, and flexibility. Ease of Use: Voters need to
be able to understand the machines and use them without glitches,
and the machines must be easy for all kinds of voters - seniors,
people with disabilities, people for whom English is a second
language, first-time voters, etc. Speed for tallying results: More
than simply providing the convenience of quick election night
results, the less time spent tallying ballots translates into
greater voter trust. Florida shows that every day spent counting
brought greater distrust. A quick, accurate result does not raise
these concerns. Reliability and Accuracy: What is the rate for
spoiled ballots, disqualified ballots, overcounts, etc.?
Flexibility: Does this equipment allow for ranked ballot election
systems, can it be used to read mail-in ballots, does it have the
capacity to tell a voter that they have cast an invalid ballot and
allow the voter to correct it?
Voting Technologies
There are four major voting technologies used:
Punchcards, Lever/Push Button Direct Recording Equipment (DREs),
Optical Scanners, and Electronic or Touch Screen DREs. All four were
in use in different jurisdictions in the state of Maryland in the
2000 election. Below are brief summaries of each, including our
short analysis of each based on the above criteria.
Punchcards
The events in Florida have unveiled a great deal
of problems with our older voting equipment, primarily the
punchcard. We have collected a number of critiques of punchcard
voting machines that have been published since the election; they
are assembled as attachments.
The most compelling information shows that
punchcards are poor in every measure: they are not always easy to
use; they are comparatively slow and more difficult to count; their
reliability is suspect - particularly with evidence that without
proper maintainence it is increasingly difficult to punch out chads
and that older, lower quality machines are concentrated in poorer,
and minority areas - and; punchcards do not have the capacity to
handle advanced voting systems such as ranked ballots or mail-in
balloting.
Lever or Push Button Direct Recording
Equipment (DREs)
These also use older technology and are harder to
service with every passing year. They may not be difficult for a
voter to understand how to operate; counting ballots with these
machines is typically fast at the precinct; this equipment is
accurate and prevents voters from casting invalid ballots, but it
also requires servicing which is increasingly difficult; and while
technically possible to administer a limited ranked ballot election,
practically speaking, that would be a near impossibility. They also
cannot be used for mail-in balloting.
Optical Scanners
Several types of optical scanner machines exist,
including precinct-based equipment and centrally located units. Both
types score high in the categories of ease of use; speed;
reliability and accuracy; and flexibility. The newer precinct units
rather than the central units present better opportunities to
correct the problem of "overvotes" as long as election officials
have enabled the feature to notify the voter if they have cast
invalid or spoiled ballots - for instance, casting a vote for both
Bush and Gore for President. Either can accommodate ranked ballots
as long as the manufacturer supplies software to count those ballots
(more on that below). Further, optical scanners are the only
machines of these four that are fully compatible with mail-in
balloting. Electronic Direct Recording Equipment, (Electronic DREs)
These are modern computerized technologies like ATMs. Voters
indicate their votes by touching the screen or pushing buttons. They
are perhaps the easiest for voters to use, they do not allow
"overvotes" and they are most compatible for use by people with
disabilities as well. Electronic equipment produces a fast, accurate
result. Electronic machines are compatible with ranked ballots, but
just as with the optical scanners, the software must be acquired for
this use. One drawback is the fact that these are not able to count
mail-in ballots.
Costs: Ballpark figures place both the
Optical Scanners and Electronic DREs between $3,000 and $6,000 each.
More Electronic DREs would be needed at each polling place than
optical scanners, there is only a need for one scanner at each
polling place. Electronic DREs provide benefits relative to optical
scanners, these include: greater voter friendliness, greater
compatibility with voters with disabilities, and less hassle
printing paper ballots.
Perhaps the most important point I can make is to
insist of vendors in any Request for Proposals (RFP) that their
equipment is compatible with ranked ballot systems. I have attached
a letter that the Center for Voting and Democracy sent to Alice
Miller, Executive Director of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics,
outlining this view.
Where We Are After 2000
One positive result of the election is the flood
of federal and state efforts that seek to modernize our voting
equipment. In the wake of the presidential race, U.S. Senators as
diverse as Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Max Cleland
(D-GA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), among
others have introduced numerous pieces of legislation to assist
states and localities in upgrading voting machines with federal
funds.
Why Concern Ourselves with Alternative Voting
Systems?
Briefly, there are more fair methods of election
than the predominant plurality-based, and winner-take-all systems in
use for most United States elections. I will speak briefly here
about proportional representation and instant runoff voting, better
election systems for choosing legislative bodies and individual
offices respectively.
Instant runoff voting is gaining attention fast
in the United States, where it was invented over a century ago. It
is a system of election for single winner offices like for Mayor,
Governor, President, in which voters rank candidates from their
favorite to their least favorite. It is used around the world,
including in elections for president of the Republic of Ireland, for
the Mayor of London and for lower house in Australia. It recently
received unanimous support from a charter commission in Austin,
Texas and from a Vermont commission (see their attached report).
Vermont legislation to enact instant runoff voting for statewide
elections has been endorsed by the state's governor and Vermont
branches of the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and Grange.
Legislation has been debated in several states in the last two years
since the idea gained national circulation; one bill passed the
state senate in New Mexico last year, while a ballot measure to
enact instant runoff voting for nearly all state and federal
elections in the state has qualified for the 2002 ballot in Alaska.
City and county measures to amend charters to allow instant runoff
voting have passed in the last three years in Santa Clara County,
Oakland and San Leandro in California, and in Vancouver,
Washington.
Instant runoff voting empowers voters in several
ways. First, the majority earns its right to decide. Second, voters
don't have to worry about whether their favorite candidate might be
a "spoiler" - this factor explains current interest among those on
both sides of the debate about Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy.
Third, there are fewer "wasted votes" - votes that do not count
toward electing anybody. Fourth, it creates incentives for winners
to reach out to the supporters of other candidates.
Proportional representation systems of electing
multi-member bodies ensure fair representation of the electorate,
and are used throughout most of the democratic world. These systems
would result in geographic, racial, ethnic, and political balance on
city, county, state and federal legislative bodies. The majority
would always maintain a majority on elected bodies, but they would
wield power in accordance with their strength in the electorate, not
at inflated levels due to the winner-take-all nature of
single-member districts, where up to 49.9 percent of the vote (or
higher in competitions between more than two candidates) may not
result in any representation.
Different forms of proportional election systems
are used in Cambridge, Massachusetts for city council and school
board elections; Amarillo, Texas (and over 50 other Texas
localities) as a result of a NAACP and MALDEF voting rights case,
for school board elections; Chilton County, Alabama; Peoria,
Illinois; and there's a strong bi-partisan effort to return to
cumulative voting for the state legislature in the state of
Illinois, where it was used for over 100 years. Some proportional
systems can be particularly appropriate for local elections. Choice
voting, for example, was in the Model City Charter of the National
Civic League for most of the 20th Century.
Maryland's History and Present
Maryland has a history of using instant runoff
voting, and there is evidence here and across the country of
significant interest in both instant runoff voting and proportional
representation.
Maryland, along with four other states, used
instant runoff voting in the early part of this century. In 1912,
Maryland passed a law for the use of instant runoff voting in
indirect party primaries, before the state went to a direct primary
system. Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin also used similar
systems of instant runoff voting in these primaries. These systems
typically were replaced because Americans had grown used to more
rapid results than could be generated by the hand ballot counts
required at that time for ranked-choice ballots.
In 1994, a federal judge presiding over a voting
rights case in Maryland's Worcester County on the Eastern Shore,
ordered the use of cumulative voting in order to give African
American voters a fair chance to elect minorities to the County
Council. While African Americans were 20 percent of the population,
evidence presented in court determined that winner-take-all,
at-large voting was the reason that no black had been elected to the
five-member council. While the circuit court affirmed that
cumulative voting was a legal remedy, it ordered the lower court to
give the county the option to choose a single-member district plan.
That plan was ultimately put in place, but a precedent has been set
that proportional systems can be used to resolve voting rights cases
in Maryland.
State legislative bills have been introduced in
the House of Delegates last session and in prior sessions to study
proportional election systems and other possible changes - last year
it was HJ Res. 9, sponsored by Delegate Weir. It is my understanding
that a similar bill will be re-introduced this session, as well as a
state Senate bill for implementing instant runoff voting for state
and federal offices. With several third parties gaining "major
party" status in 2000, the next round of election could see multiple
candidates running for offices statewide and locally, resulting in
many non-majority winners. Instant runoff voting remedies this
problem, while empowering the voter and allowing more votes to
count.
In conclusion, there are a variety of voting
systems that the state or individual localities may want to
implement in coming years. Voting technology exists to accommodate
all of these options. Maryland should be prepared for the future by
ensuring that any voting equipment it acquires will handle these
modern election systems.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Please
feel free to use us as a resource as you examine the state's voting
machines and procedures, we stand ready to assist
you in any way we
can.