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By Jon Klusmire
Register Staff 11-8-2007
“The elections world is still in a mess.”
That was the message from Inyo County Clerk Mary Roper, which she delivered to the Board of Supervisors with a mix of exasperation and disbelief and, in some cases, nervous laughter about what might go on at the polls next year during the February presidential primary election and the June California primary elections.
Nonsensical rulings and situations will arise for voters, but taxpayers will have to fork over about $40,000 to help create the confusion.
In a nutshell, the problem Roper faces is that the Secretary of State has “de-certified” the county’s touch-screen voting machines. However, in the same breath, Secretary of State Debra Bowen has required the county to keep one touch-screen voting machine at each polling place for use by disabled voters.
Roper confirmed to the somewhat amazed supervisors that Bowen ruled that the general public cannot use the touch-screen machines because the machines and the votes on them might be tampered with or otherwise compromised, but the exact same machines and software are just fine for use by handicapped voters.
So, since the county will still have to use some of its touch-screen voting machines, it will have to pay the company that built them to come and provide support services and software for the half-dozen or so machines that will be in use.
That will cost about $20,000. Sequoia Voting Systems, the company that the county bought the touch-screen system from, will provide the software and support. The cost could be less, Roper said, but getting approval for the worst-case scenario seemed like a good idea since she was planning for worst-case-scenarios for the entire primary election season.
Next up on the cost calculator for the elections is another $20,000 for “optical scanners” to scan and count the paper ballots that voters will use in February and June. Once again, Sequoia will provide the scanners and technical support. Even with the new scanners, Roper predicted that there would be no final vote tally until Wednesday morning after the Tuesday election day.
That drew the first snickers and head shaking from the Board of Supervisors. The whole idea of the state moving its presidential primary to February was to allow California to have more clout when it comes to picking each party’s candidates for president. The state wanted its spot in the national political spotlight.
It will be in the spotlight, but it might not be a very flattering turn on the national stage.
Because of Bowen’s ruling, most state jurisdictions are not allowed to use touch-screen or a number of other electronic voting machines, nor can jurisdictions use the old punch card systems (can’t have the dreaded “hanging chad,” which was the reason the state and federal government paid millions in grants for electronic voting machines), the nation will get to watch harried California election workers wading through mountains of paper ballots and wallowing in national spotlight while trying to explain why it could take days to get real election results and final totals.
Roper said that in San Francisco, some residents are pushing to pushout any automated ballot-counting, and have all ballots tallied by hand.
Standard, fill-in-the-blanks muttering and San Francisco jokes followed.
The joke, however, could be on some poll workers or voters because of the presence of the touch-screen machine at each polling place.
First goofy scenario: During the February primary election, if one person uses the touch-screen machine, at least five more must use it, too. Roper noted that directive is meant to ensure that each voter’s vote remains secret. Thus, if only one person votes on the electronic machine, and declares to be a Republican, it’s easy to figure out who that voter voted for. Why? Because Bowen has dictated that an “audit” be conducted on every vote on every touch-screen machine.
The Sequoia machines do provide a “paper trail” that allows the voter to see, on paper, who he or she voted for, and allows the polling officials to make sure there was no double voting or other foul ups on the machines. That was one reason, by the way, that the state originally determined the Sequoia system was solid and could be counted on to count votes right. When the county bought the machines, they were state-certified and have been used in three elections before Bowen decided they could not be trusted.
Anyway, back to the audit and paper trails. If the audit shows one Republican voter and one vote for John McCain, it could be pretty easy for poll workers to deduce who voted for whom. Not good. Thus, with at least five political parties with nominees on the ballot, at least five other voters should vote on the electronic machine to hide who voted for whom, according to Bowen.
The need to get those votes “hidden” will drive the need to direct at least four more people to vote on the machine.
Roper said she wasn’t sure if poll workers would have to force people to vote on the machines or ask for volunteers to meet the five-vote minimum or just how that would be handled.
Which creates goofy scenario number two. Since voters like the touch-screen machines, they might just line up and wait to use the machines instead of filling out paper ballots. Roper said she didn’t think that poll workers would be “running around slapping people’s hands” who wanted to vote on the touch-screen machines instead of the paper ballots.
“People like the electronic machines, so we can’t tell them no” if they ask to use them, she said.
Roper also said she had no idea what Bowen might do if the majority of the county’s votes were tallied on the machines, not paper.
On the tally side of the ledger, Roper will buy three more digital scanners to count the paper ballots. She said the county currently has two scanners, and it typically takes from early morning until 8 p.m. on election day for those scanners to only count the absentee ballots. Absentee ballots, which are close to about half of all the ballots cast, can be counted on election day.
Ballots cast on election day can’t be counted until the polls close at 8 p.m., she said, so she wants one scanner working all day on absentees, then four scanners working on paper ballots.
Those new scanners won’t guarantee quick counting, however. Roper said that once the counting starts, it can’t stop, so there could be some tired poll workers in the courthouse Wednesday morning when the ballot counting is expected to be finished.
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