Newsday

July 15, 2004

 
Few real changes seen in election system overhaul 
By Deborah Barfield Berry





WASHINGTON -- Last month, Ohio received an extra $91 million in federal funds to upgrade its antiquated election system. But state election officials say they have yet to buy any new voting machines and that voters in the key battleground state will still use punch cards, hanging chads and all, when they go to the polls in November.

"For the most part we are pretty much in the same situation we were in
2000," said Dana Walch, director of Ohio's Election Reform program. "We wanted to be further than we are right now ... We're going to do everything we need to do to have a successful election.

"We've got no choice. We've got to have the election."

Ohio, like most states, will use the same voting machines it used during
the 2000 election when the country was rocked by charges of voter
disenfranchisement and images of "hanging chads," particularly in the
crucial state of Florida.

Despite federal and state efforts to overhaul election systems, 74 percent
of voters will use the same equipment they used in 2000, according to
Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services Inc., an election
research company.

"If we get a close election, as many people think we will, then we have the potential of another Florida," Brace said.

In the wake of the Florida debacle, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 to give states money to upgrade equipment, develop computer registration lists and improve access for the disabled. It also created the Election Assistance Commission to provide guidance to states.

But commissioners weren't appointed to the agency until December 2003, and they complain about a lack of resources.

Most states tried to fix their election systems on their own. From 2001 to
2003, states introduced about 3,600 reform bills, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

This year alone, more than 1,500 election reform bills were introduced. Of those, about 95 have become law, 655 have failed and 750 are pending.

At least 28 bills are pending in New York, which will use lever machines,
while 167 were introduced in the state last year. None has passed this year and the seven passed last year made only minor changes.

After the 2000 elections, the issue was "very much on the radar screen of state legislators and something that every state was dealing with," said
Jennie Bowser, election analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Nobody wanted to be the Florida in 2004."

Even with money from the federal election law, states have been reluctant to buy new equipment, particularly electronic voting machines, without national standards.

State and federal officials cite the controversy over the security and
reliability of electronic voting machines and whether they can provide a
verifiable paper trail.

A few states, including Maryland, Georgia and Florida, have bought new
equipment, mostly electronic voting machines. Some 15 out of 67 Florida counties have purchased electronic voting machines.

Ohio officials said they had planned to use electronic voting machines in
31 of 88 counties this fall. But they put off buying the machines because
of pending lawsuits, a lack of funding and concerns that the machines could be tampered with.

Instead, Ohio will begin an education campaign to help voters properly use punch cards and check for "hanging" chads.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing over the state's continued use of the punch card system, which it says has a high error rate. The ACLU has similar lawsuits in other states, and a key focus is the disproportionate use of the antiquated system in communities of color.

"By keeping the same technology you're keeping those populations vulnerable to whether their votes will be counted," said LaShawn Warren, legislative counsel for the ACLU.

Many states, including Ohio, plan to institute some changes by November. The new federal law requires that states provide provisional ballots, which allow people to vote if there is a question about eligibility. The ballots are checked later.

The law also requires first- time voters who register by mail to present
identification and for voters' rights to be posted at polling sites.

Civil rights officials, however, say they worry that voters may face some
problems they encountered in 2000 when many voters of color were
disenfranchised, voters were turned away at the polls and some machines malfunctioned.

"The debate [about electronic voting machines] is still going to be
occurring the day before the election," Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said recently.

Changing voting methods

A look at the voting equipment used in 2000 compared with what will be
available in November.

PERCENTAGE OF VOTERS 2000 2004

Optical scan 30% 34%

Punch card 27% 12%

Lever 17% 14%

Electronic 13% 31%

Other 13% 9%

SOURCE: ELECTION DATA SERVICES