Secretary of State Mike Coffman told lawmakers this morning that he is making progress toward re-certifying some of the faulty voting machines used across the state.
But voting activists questioned whether the proposed fixes would be enough to restore voter confidence in the election system.
At a meeting this morning, Coffman told members of the legislature’s Joint State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee that he has identified specific ways to possibly fix the problems in each of the four models of voting equipment he decertified last year, throwing the election into chaos for the 53 counties that use one or more of the machines.
“I can’t guarantee that these problems can be solved,” Coffman said after the meeting. “But I think we should take a shot.”
For machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems, used by Denver, Coffman said the solution could be as simple as reviewing documents the company recently submitted to prove it complies with some parts of state standards. Coffman said his office has also retested ballot-counting machines made by Election Systems and Software, or ES&S, which are used in Jefferson and Mesa counties. Coffman said testers were able to get the machines to scan the required number of ballots at a time and are currently reviewing the accuracy of those scans.
Coffman expressed the most concerns for ballot-counting machines made by Hart InterCivic, which he said are used in 47 counties and showed a significant error rate when counting ballots with stray marks on them. The company is going to provide Coffman with a software upgrade, which may fix the problem, Coffman said.
He said he wouldn’t certify any of the machines if they didn’t meet state standards.
“If they’re not credible, we’re not going to use this equipment,” Coffman said.
But voting machine activists said the fixes wouldn’t be enough to salvage voter confidence.
“It’s not that we hate these machines,” said Al Kolwicz, with the Colorado Voter Group, which supports using hand-counted paper ballots at polling places. “We hate working with something that is not transparent, not verifiable and not auditable.”
Jenny Flanagan, the executive director of Colorado Common Cause, said Coffman and lawmakers should impose extra scrutiny and more audit processes to ensure accuracy.
“There are models out there that can rebuild the confidence that has been lost with this decertification,” Flanagan said. “…I think we’ll have confidence when we impose these additional testing and standards.”
Lawmakers also expressed concern over the problems.
“We have to give the public a fail-safe way to say that we can check these votes one, two, three times,” said Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver.
Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, said the state should be able to push the voting machine makers to fix their systems.
“The vendors should be held accountable,” Tapia said. “They’re selling the equipment.”
Coffman decertified the machines last year after a lengthy testing process. Members of the Colorado County Clerks Association, which has asked for an all mail-in ballot election to minimize problems, have said they will need a clear direction on how to handle the election by April 1.
Coffman, meanwhile, has asked lawmakers to pass a law giving him greater latitude to recertify the subpar machines without going back through the full testing process. Coffman said today that, even without such a law, he thinks he can get most of the machines recertified by that April 1 timeframe.
