County studies voting options
Leasing machines for next year's votes could save millions

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer | Tuesday, August 21, 2007 12:04 AM PDT ∞

Riverside County officials say they're considering a range of voting systems for the Feb. 5 presidential primary elections, with leased equipment and hand-counted paper ballots among the options.

The county will be allowed to use only about 600 of the 3,700 Sequoia Edge touch-screen voting terminals that it owns, under an Aug. 3 directive from Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Citing a threat posed by hackers, Bowen limited each polling place to one, to serve elderly or disabled voters.

As a result, county officials say they will be hard-pressed to acquire, test and set up a system that would meet Bowen's standards. Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore said in interviews earlier this month that a system of scannable paper ballots appeared to be the most promising. The county could buy 600 or so scanners from Sequoia at a cost of about $6 million, Dunmore said.

But Dunmore and two supervisors assigned to study the transition have since decided to expand their search. One option would be to lease the same 600 terminals for the February and June elections for a fraction of the cost, Supervisor Marion Ashley said.

Hand-counted paper ballots, which most jurisdictions abandoned in the 1950s and '60s, also remain a possibility, albeit a distant one. Most polling stations would have between 300 and 500 people voting, Ashley said, requiring more than the half-dozen citizens that have worked most stations in recent elections.

"It probably would be awfully hard to muster that many people and train them," Ashley said Monday.

Dunmore had suggested the Sequoia system because, she said, it would probably more easily sync up with Sequoia software that the county uses to run its elections. She said Monday that she's still looking into that issue. Dunmore is expected to issue a written recommendation before Aug. 28, when the Board of Supervisors reconvenes after its one-month summer recess.

A group of Southwest County voter activists criticized the move, calling it favoritism toward Sequoia. They sharpened that criticism after learning that elections officials in San Bernardino County, which has used a Sequoia system similar to Riverside's, might spend just $1.5 million adjusting to Bowen's requirements.

The county has already paid Sequoia some $30 million on a series of voting systems. That figure includes upgrade equipment required by state and federal law; federal grants have offset several million dollars of that total.

San Bernardino County Registrar Kari Verjil said that she's recommending just $1.5 million in additional equipment, including the voting booths that would be included in the $6 million Riverside County plan.

Verjil's recommendation, to be adopted or rejected by her county's Board of Supervisors today, is that voters mark their choices on paper ballots that would be sorted at each precinct and then hauled back to the registrar's office in San Bernardino for counting on the same Sequoia high-speed scanners it uses for absentee ballots. The county already has enough scanners to handle the job, but the results could take longer than with touch-screen machines, Verjil said.

Riverside County already plans to replace its 20-year-old scanners. Candidates are the Sequoia scanners used in San Bernardino and a system used in Orange and other counties, Ashley said.

If Riverside County does go forward with Dunmore's original suggestion, it could have to replace the machines as soon as 2010, when federal law will begin to require that each ballot be scanned electronically, photographed and maintained in order to provide two layers of backup in case the scanning process goes awry. That, Ashley said, is another reason to seek a temporary solution for 2008, such as the lease.

"We're trying to get the best we can for this election," Ashley said. "We want to make sure that we do it fast and transparently. Most of all, we want it to be accurate."

-- Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.

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Pre-Registration Comments[-]Go to Top

Vista Resident wrote on Aug 20, 2007 11:32 PM:Surely our citizens care enough about our democracy to volunteer a few hours at the end of the day to count ballots. Most people work during the day. So, they may not be able to be at a polling booth all day. Volunteering for democracy a few hours a year -- surely we can manage that. It would be very helpful if the NC Times would put contact info for this work in the newspaper at the appropriate time of year.

DenKodos wrote on Aug 21, 2007 4:08 AM:How does this square with the Elections Review Committee report which pushed for a move to optically scanned system? I didn't read where they were recommending "leasing" systems until the next secretary of state changes the entire system. Again.

quinnie wrote on Aug 21, 2007 4:56 AM:where do i sign up to hand count ballots? i'm sure if my employer gripes about me taking time off to vote and be part of the democratic process, i wouldn't want to work for them.

Chris Wilson wrote on Aug 21, 2007 8:03 AM:Why not use digital pen voting? Low cost, paper ballots--can be hand counted if needed, and could be implemented in a short time frame. Do a Google search.

Patrick wrote on Aug 21, 2007 8:34 AM:Machines = voter fraud, this has been proven over and over again. We need a paper trail.

Ashley is the voice of reason wrote on Aug 21, 2007 8:54 AM:and people should listen to him, including the ROV and the rest of the Board. Leasing makes sense so that the county isn't stuck with another huge pile of junk that could only be used to ... heck, they couldn't be used for anything! And what is up with $6 million for 600 scanners - who ever heard of paying $10,000 per machine for a stupid scanner? Only with Sequoia - only with Dunmore. Oh, did I use both names in the same sentence? Hmmm.

Paper trails are a sham wrote on Aug 21, 2007 9:21 AM:any computer can be programmed (rigged) to print something very different from what is keyed into the computer. Thus we need to go back to the future and use paper ballots, either hand-counted or scanned by digital imaging (refer to the 2010 standards mentioned in the article). There is no other way to know that your vote was counted as you cast it.

One Option wrote on Aug 21, 2007 12:08 PM:Conduct the election using paper ballots and 100% human hand counting, with no electronics anywhere in sight, just paper, #2 pencils, and people who know how to count. If the process ultimately has problems, we'll know precisely what the cause is. Anything else will be opaque, which is the opposite of transparent, the current stylish buzzword.

What? wrote on Aug 21, 2007 2:20 PM:What's so hard about getting the computer system to print two hard copies of every ballot cast? One for the records and one for the voter. Voter checks hard copy to confirm it is correct. Isolate the computers from the internet to prevent hacking. This means no internet connection whats so ever. Collect the data when the polling places close via a hardwired LAN while maintaining internet isolation. No wireless parts in this network. Then post results to internet connected machines. Do random checks comparing computer data to hard copies to check for tampring. Since the hard copies are printed they could easily be read by computers to speed the cross checking process and allowing for large samples. If there are any problems the hard copies can be human tallied for final validation. Seems pretty simple and straight forward to me.

Sam wrote on Aug 21, 2007 3:49 PM:I not missed an election since I turned 21, (1961) over the past several years I have had less and less confidence that my vote is secure and counted. The debacle of the hanging chads in Florida with the highly politicized recount and the questionable Ohio election returns, both of which inflicted the current president on the nation, have stregthened that concern. It has been proven that the voting machines can be "fixed" to cast the vote to whomsoever put in the fix. The manufacturer of the most popular machine manufacture is a big contributor to Republican politics in Ohio. I am hopeful that we will return to paper ballots with counters and observers from both parties overseeing the process. Time shouldnt be a consideration; we have all the time in the world to regret the last two presidential elections. Lets get the President we elect this time.

spy wrote on Aug 21, 2007 4:19 PM:We need to have a new Registrar of Voter. Why does Dunmore insist on Sequoia? Sounds supicious. The last election was totally questionable as to it being HACKED into. The Secretary of State has proved it is viable to being HACKED into.

There I Go Using Logic wrote on Aug 21, 2007 5:15 PM:During her campaign for office of Secretary of State, Debra Bowen made it crystal clear that she was going to challenge DRE's and restore "transparency", or in other words, bring back paper ballots. The people who had the most to lose if this plan came to fruition were the hackers and the DRE manufacturers. If the voting process was purportedly capable of being hacked 120 ways to dictate the outcome, how did Bowen get elected?

Vista Resident wrote on Aug 21, 2007 9:08 PM:As I recall, activists in Marin county saw to it that fair and transparent elections were implemented there. And, as I recall, Bowen did very well in Marin. So, Bowen probably actually was elected by a much larger margin than was registered by the vote counting machines.

Calvin wrote on Aug 22, 2007 5:53 AM:I keep hearing about DRE's being hacked but I can't find anywhere in the country where a single case has been proven. Also, give me a paper ballot and I can guarantee it can be hacked. In fact the proportion of people able to ‘hack’ a paper ballot is near 100%. With any physical security in place, how many people do you think have the capability to ‘hack’ a DRE? One last point on a previous post… (" What's so hard about getting the computer system to print two hard copies of every ballot cast? One for the records and one for the voter.) That would violate law in any state in the union. What do you think would happen if every voter were allowed to walk out of the polling place with evidence of how they voted? Think about it. That’s why it’s illegal.

Logic wrote on Aug 22, 2007 7:08 AM:OK, Vista, so in other words, once hackers reach their quota of changed votes, they are prohibited from performing any further hacking necessary to ensure victory in the election. Why didn't I think of that? You're right about Marin - I grew up near there and know it to be a hippie haven just like The City, except with more money. Bowen should have won by a landslide there, but even that would have been a drop in the bucket compared to the votes she tallied in the sanctuary known as LA County.

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