It’s only nine weeks and change before the Nov. 6 election, and many county clerks are starting to get nervous that their voting machines have yet to be re-certified.
We can’t blame them. They’re simply trying to restore voter confidence and credibility to an election process that has taken more than a few hits in recent years.
But the court order requiring the machines to be re-certified pertains to the next general, primary or statewide election, which will be in 2008. This November, counties and localities are having elections, but most are using mail ballots, not electronic voting machines, which are required in general elections.
Secretary of State Mike Coffman says he will release information and a statement as early as Tuesday that will “allay the concerns of the county clerks for the November 2007 elections.”
Coffman needs to ensure voter confidence in the overall process and in the upcoming election.
It’s hard to believe we’re still haggling with these issues nearly seven years after Florida’s butterfly ballots and hanging chads became the symbol of how not to conduct an election. That fiasco prompted Congress to pass the Help America Vote Act, which gave states nearly $4 billion in federal funds to replace old voting machines with new electronic ones and to computerize voter registration lists.
Coffman had hoped to have the machines re-certified this summer, but he says the four vendors who sold machines to counties have failed to turn over the necessary information. “Despite repeated demands … we have not received all of the information from each of the vendors that we need to complete the testing process and throughout this entire process, the vendors have been slow to cooperate in getting us the documentation, hardware or other information that we have requested,” Coffman said.
If true, the vendors need to be held accountable and Coffman should do whatever is necessary to force their compliance.
Voting integrity is a cornerstone of democracy.
