Florida e-voting update

As Chris mentioned here last week, voting problems in Sarasota County for the Florida 13th Congressional District race may change the future of e-voting in America.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California says it's time to take a hard look at e-voting and other election reforms:

This month's election fueled growing anxiety about new electronic voting systems around the country, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California plans to take a hard look at e-voting and a host of other election issues and rules.

[..]With the new Democratic majority in the Senate, Feinstein in January will take over the little-known Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees ethics rules in the Senate and how federal elections are run. She plans wide-ranging hearings on election reform next year, said media aide Howard Gantman.

Even before the election, Feinstein was planning legislation to require a paper trail verified by voters for all electronic systems in the nation. A similar bill in the House has the support of 216 members, two short of a majority.

California and 26 other states now have a voter-verified paper trail.

In addition, one of the first things Congress should do is get the Rush Holt Voter Confidence Act out of committee where it has languished for more than three years and on to the floor of the House for a debate -- a debate that America needs to hear. From Rep. Holt's website, key provisions of the bill include:

• Strengthening the HAVA current audit trail requirement - "a permanent paper record" - by requiring that the voters have the opportunity to verify the accuracy of that recorded vote.



• Requiring that all voting systems produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits, commencing in 2006 in accordance with HAVA's original deadline. (Funding of $150 million is authorized to help states meet the cost of implementing this requirement.)



• Preserving HAVA's existing access requirements for voters with disabilities; clarifying and enhancing the security requirements demanded of systems to be used by voters with disabilities; and adding the requirement that an accessible voter-verification mechanism be provided.



• Banning the use of undisclosed software and all wireless and concealed communications devices in voting systems, and prohibiting the connection of any voting machine component to the Internet.



• Requiring random, unannounced, hand-count audits of the voter-verified paper records in 2% of all precincts, including at least 1 precinct per county. Such funds as may be necessary are authorized to fund the expense of the audits.



• Require manufacturers and election officials to document the chain of custody with respect to the handling of software; prohibit the use of software or software modifications that have not been certified or re-certified; and prohibit political and financial conflicts of interest among manufactures, test laboratories, and political parties.

Ironically, in the same election that resulted in 18,000 undervotes in the FL-13 race, the voters of Sarasota County voted to ditch their touch screen system and install a new system with a paper trail:

While many frantic shoppers are busy searching for the perfect holiday gift, Sarasota County commissioners will soon be shopping for new voting machines that will satisfy citizens' demand for a paper trail.

With 55 percent of Sarasota County voters calling for the replacement of the county's $4.7 million touch-screen voting machines in a referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot, commissioners will begin developing a plan to purchase new equipment today.

Sarasota County Commissioner Paul Mercier said it is vitally important to get citizens involved in the process of choosing a voting system because of the growing concern about the reliability of touch-screen machines following the more than 18,300 undervotes in the 13th Congressional District race.

And guess who wants to sell them new machines?

Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley provided commissioners with a memo this week that estimates the new voting machines could cost the county $4.1 million, with an annual maintenance charge of $143,850. The county would also be required to spend about $175,000 for paper ballots in each election.

The cost estimates for the new equipment were provided to commissioners by Elections Systems and Software, Inc., the same company that produces the iVotronic touch-screen machines currently used by the county.

According to the article, the county supervisor of elections says it might be a good idea to get bids from other vendors, too.

But wait, there's more:

After the 2000 election debacle, Florida moved fast - too fast, some say - to revamp the way votes are cast in Florida. With millions of dollars at stake, corporations spent lavishly to win over local governments.

ES&S hired former Secretary of State Sandy Mortham, who also represented the Florida Association of Counties, to push ES&S machines. The former Pinellas legislator received an undisclosed commission for every county buying ES&S machines, and the Association of Counties also received a commission from the 32 counties that paid $67-million of ES&S machines.

Some have suggested that the Help America Vote Act was really a Help America Voting Machine Manufacturers Act. And now it appears they will profit even more as America spends more money fixing the problems HAVA created.

In related news, today Sarasota County is running a "mock election" to audit the voting machines:

For 12 hours Tuesday, state elections officials will try to recreate a slice of Sarasota County's controversial election day.

A handful of electronic voting machines will be set up in a mock polling place. Workers, acting as voters, will follow a precise script, selecting candidates using the same ballot actual voters saw and noting any problems they have with the machines recording their votes.

Each machine will be videotaped.

The point of the exercise is to try and shed light on the mystery of the nearly 18,000 so-called "undervotes" in the bitter congressional District 13 race.

It's one more step in a multi-layered effort to figure out if machines malfunctioned or if those voters simply declined to cast ballots in the contest.

Unfortunately there's no paper trail to audit, so this is about the best they can do. Critics, including losing FL-13 Democratic candidate Christine Jennings (who has not conceded), say that the test is not truly independent and that the state, having selected the machines, "has an interest in seeing the audit reveal no unusual problems."

Just as a final thought, as it stands right now the certified results in FL-13 have the Republican candidate ahead by 369 votes. After all the recounts, George Bush's official margin in Florida, the state that gave him the presidency in 2000, was 537 votes. This was out of nearly six million votes cast in Florida. When races are this close and the stakes are this high, voters must demand that every vote count and that every vote be counted.