County OKs paper ballot plan

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Wednesday, June 2, 2004 10:46 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- County officials have completed contract negotiations that will clear the way for local voters to use paper-and-pen ballots in November's elections, they said Wednesday.

County advisers recommended using "optical scan" paper ballots ---- the kind voters fill in with a pen or pencil ---- nearly three weeks ago, shortly after state officials barred the county from using the 10,200 electronic touch-screen voting machines it agreed to buy last year.

But county managers waited to approve the recommendation until they were sure that troubled electronic-voting machine manufacturer Diebold Systems Inc. ---- the company that sold San Diego County its machines ---- would foot the bill for the replacement system.

County officials have maintained for months that Ohio-based Diebold was contractually bound to pay for a replacement system if their machines could not be used.

But they also acknowledged that Diebold had legal grounds to resist providing a replacement system because the county still has not paid the company one cent of the $31 million in state and federal grant money it agreed to pay the company for the banned machines.

On Wednesday, county policy adviser Mikel Haas said the county and Diebold had clarified their contractual terms.

Diebold officials could not be reached for comment.

Haas said that according to the county's agreement, Diebold would pay whatever it cost the county to use an estimated 2 million optical-scan paper ballots this November.

In return, the county has promised not to sue Diebold and to pay a substantial first payment to Diebold ---- roughly $18 million ---- after the Nov. 2 elections, but not until the electronic "TSx" voting machines the county bought from Diebold have been cleared for use by the federal and state governments.

Both Diebold and the county expect the now-barred machines to eventually re-qualify for use in future elections.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley barred San Diego and three other counties from using their TSx touch-screen machines in November last month.

San Diego County used its new Diebold touch-screen machines in the March primaries. But electronic glitches caused 36 percent of the county's polls to open late and prevented an unknown number of people from voting. Despite the problems, most voters said they loved using the machines.

Shelley said he was banning the Diebold machines because of the problems in San Diego County and because the company had failed to get required federal testing done.

Haas said Wednesday that Diebold has told the county it has gotten that required federal testing and plans to ask Shelley to reinstate the machines.

For now ---- at least for November ---- Haas said local voters can expect to cast their ballots with pencils and pens.

Haas said the optical scan system would use paper ballots that look just like the ones absentee voters have been using for years. The paper ballots require voters to darken "bubbles" with pens or pencils to mark their selections, similar to standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Special machines then optically scan the ballots to count the darkened-bubble votes.

"It ain't high-tech, but it works," Haas said.

Haas said with an estimated 1.3 million voters in San Diego County, about 2 million ballots would probably be printed. Of those, he said, there would be 80 different ballot types because of the differing local elections, such as fire districts, school districts, hospital districts and the like, that will piggyback onto the presidential election.

"Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle with 800 pieces," he said of the paper ballots that would be printed up for voters.

Haas said the county will order the ballots, polling booths and optical scanning machines from Diebold. He said the county hasn't yet decided whether to ask for 40 scanners and have the machines count ballots at a central location after polls close, or whether to request 1,400 scanners that can start counting at individual polling places.

County officials said their agreement with Diebold would ensure that the company would pay the cost of replacement voting systems in future elections if the TSx machines the county bought from the company still have not been recertified by the state.

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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