It’s difficult to consider botched elections and the need for reform without thinking about Florida, the mother of modern voting woes.
So it seems perfectly appropriate that the state recently provided the latest glaring example of what could go wrong in this post-punch-card era.
The debacle, in which touch-screen voting machines recorded an unusually large undervote in a close congressional race, gave federal elections officials considering reform another situation to ponder.
That election came just before a critical report from the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology. The study raises serious questions about the accuracy of paperless electronic voting systems.
The institute, which is advising a bipartisan federal panel considering election reforms, said vote systems should allow for verification that’s independent from the machines’ software. The systems are vulnerable to fraud and malfunction, and without paper audit trails there is no way to ensure accuracy.
The recommendation will go to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a four- member group that includes former Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson. Denver City Council member Rosemary Rodriguez also has been nominated to join the group.
The commission is charged with establishing election standards under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. Congress passed the legislation after the 2000 presidential election, which was marred by problems with punch-card vote systems – particularly in Florida.
HAVA provided $3 billion to the states for updated election equipment, to be used in accordance with HAVA requirements. Many elections supervisors, eager to avoid problems, bought new machines.
In Colorado, there is a mix of systems. Boulder County’s machines keep paper records, for instance. Those used in Jefferson and Arapahoe counties do not. Some Denver machines do; some don’t.
While none of Colorado’s Election Day problems seemed to involve missing electronic votes, there was a 13 percent undervote in that Sarasota County, Fla., congressional race. Since there’s no paper trail, it may be impossible to learn what happened. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean on Thursday called for a new election in the district.
Last week, a federal advisory panel recommended paper trails for the next generation of electronic voting machines. It’s a reminder that despite the headaches and cost to implement HAVA, the job of modernizing America’s voting systems and ensuring public confidence in our elections is far from finished.
