County wants state approval of voting machines

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer
Supervisors could withhold payment on $560,000 order for scanners | Tuesday, September 18, 2007 10:39 PM PDT ∞

RIVERSIDE -- Riverside County is driving a harder bargain with the company that supplies its voting machines, insisting it will withhold payment on a $560,000 order until the company receives final approval from Sacramento.

In an Aug. 3 order, Secretary of State Debra Bowen withdrew approval for most of the electronic-based voting machines, including both the touch-screen system used in Riverside County and the systems of electronically scanned ballots used in more than 30 other counties.

All those systems can be used in November, but they'll have to meet stricter security measures to be used again for the Feb. 5 presidential primary elections. Bowen also placed limits on the touch-screens that make them impractical as the primary system for the 22 counties that use them now.

County election officials negotiated a tentative deal to acquire six high-speed scanners, which would count absentee ballots and at least temporarily replace the touch-screens by counting paper ballots cast at the polls. The deal would have guaranteed a 70 percent refund in the event that Bowen doesn't recertify the machines.

"That's not good enough," Supervisor Marion Ashley said. "It'd be better if we didn't pay a dime until this is certified."

Ashley and two other supervisors voted to approve any contract that would allow the county to pay for the machines after Bowen certifies them, or to return them without charge if she doesn't.

Most of the five supervisors have blasted Bowen's order, but have also expressed frustration that Sequoia hasn't provided greater guarantees. Supervisors Jeff Stone and John Tavaglione sided with Ashley in the 3-2 vote.

Speaking before the vote, Supervisor Roy Wilson said he hesitated to buy more equipment from Sequoia, which has already done some $30 million of business with the county since it first adopted touch-screens in 2000. Supervisor Bob Buster has consistently defended the electronic touch-screens.

"What we're talking about is hypothetical risk here, which is ... far less than the problems we've seen with the absentee system in this county," Buster said.

The deal that the supervisors seek would be far more generous than anything Sequoia has offered in the past, Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore said.

Tom Courbat, an election-security activist, praised the supervisors' tougher stance vis-a-vis Sequoia. Courbat has frequently warned that the touch-screens' results are vulnerable to manipulation by rogue computer experts, a claim Stone, Buster and Tavaglione have vociferously refuted.

The restrictions on electronic voting mean the county will have to curtail its early voting program, which offered citizens a chance to vote on touch-screen machines at malls in the weeks before Election Day.

"I believe that we're going to see a smaller turnout as a result of the paper balloting," Stone warned. "I can't tell you how many people in Southwest Riverside County have commented on the convenience of going to our mall after eight o'clock.

"Many of them leave before the polls are open and many of them come home when the polls are closed. Having that availability of going to a mall and conveniently doing your voting, I believe, has really increased the opportunity for people who otherwise would not be able to go the polls and vote."

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