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New voting system could cost $6 million

By: CHRIS BAGLEY - Staff Writer | Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:00 am | Loading…

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New state mandates for February's presidential primary election will prompt Riverside County either to adopt a $6 million system of paper ballots or to file a lawsuit to retain its existing system of touch-screen terminals, county officials said Monday.

After teams of computer scientists described security gaps in most counties' voting systems late last month, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen ordered a wide range of new security measures for touch-screen systems used in 22 counties and for the systems of scanned paper ballots used in most other counties. Bowen also sharply curtailed the use of touch-screens, a move that virtually assures that those counties will have to buy and install entirely new systems.

In Riverside County, where 200,000 voters could vote at polls in February, the most promising option is a ballot that a voter marks with ink or pencil and then feeds into a scanner, Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore said. Outfitting each of the county's 605 voting precincts with one of the Sequoia Insight scanners could cost as much as $5 million, according to a preliminary estimate by Dunmore. That figure doesn't include the 3,000-plus voting booths that voters would need.

Several companies make and service such optical-scan systems, which were used last November by some 60 percent of the state's poll voters, according to the California Voter Foundation. The Insight, which is already used in the counties of Tulare, Ventura and Alameda, would probably fit most smoothly with Riverside County's other equipment, most of which is made by Sequoia Voting Systems, Dunmore said. Dunmore said she expects to have a better idea after meeting with Supervisors John Tavaglione and Marion Ashley later this week.

The county is already negotiating with Sequoia to replace 20-year-old scanners used to count absentee ballots. A new set of Sequoia scanners is estimated at $700,000.

Of the 39 security requirements Bowen laid out for using Sequoia systems, many apply to its optical scanners. During a conference call Monday morning, Sequoia representatives assured clients that the company would be able to bring its equipment into compliance by February, Dunmore said.

The orders don't apply to the local elections that most counties will hold in November 2006.

Less certain is how Dunmore and other registrars will continue to use touch-screens. Bowen is allowing one per polling place, in keeping with a federal requirement that blind, illiterate and other disabled voters be fully accommodated, but she isn't limiting their use to disabled voters.

Another Bowen requirement mandates a 100 percent manual recount of the spooled paper printouts to double-check each machine's accuracy. In Riverside County, that could require recounts of more than 30,000 ballots, compared to 15,000 or fewer in several recent elections. Bowen ordered that additional workers be recruited and trained by counties and that manufacturers cover the costs.

"Of course, it is causing us concern," Dunmore said. "It is a very tedious and boring and laborious process."

Kim Alexander, president of the voter foundation, said precincts could vary widely in terms of how many voters use the touch-screens. While avoiding direct criticism of touch-screen terminals, Alexander has said counties may have adopted them hastily without considering how state and federal regulators would evaluate their security. Local elections officials up and down the state have complained that Bowen's orders could cause even greater haste as counties supplant their touch-screen systems for the February elections.

"It may be hard for the counties to make the transfer for this election, but they're going to save a lot of money in the long run," Alexander said.

In Riverside County, which has spent some $30 million on Sequoia touch-screens since 2000, Supervisor Jeff Stone didn't see it that way. Like registrars and manufacturers, Stone has frequently criticized the computer scientists' review as far removed from the conditions in which the voting terminals are used and stored. And the cure Bowen has proposed could be worse than the perceived ills, Stone said.

"We have a political zealot in Sacramento," he said. "The secretary of state has been very shortsighted in coming up with the decision she did so close to the February primary."

Stone said he asked the county's attorneys Monday morning to evaluate potential legal action. Riverside and other counties using touch-screens could ask a judge to block Bowen's orders or, if that fails, to force the state to reimburse them for money they have spent on systems that were cleared for use.

An attempt to block Bowen's orders could face a couple of hurdles. For one, an advisory panel created by the Board of Supervisors earlier this year came back last month with a recommendation that the county replace most of its 3,700 touch-screens "as quickly as possible." The panel didn't have the power to mandate a timetable, nor did it suggest one.

And such an attempt failed in 2004. After Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ordered touch-screen terminals to produce paper receipts by that year's general election, Riverside County asked a federal judge to block the order. The judge refused.

"There's a great deal of administrative discretion on this," said Henry Brady, a political scientist at UC Berkeley.

The matter at hand is somewhat different from Riverside County's earlier case, since Bowen's order does not provide any conditions that would allow Riverside, San Bernardino and 13 other counties to continue using all their Sequoia touch-screens. A similar order applies to San Diego and three other counties that use touch-screen terminals made by Diebold Election Systems.

Brady said he faults most of the voting-machine manufacturers for imperfect security, but he also questioned Bowen's decision to single out Sequoia and Diebold touch-screen systems while imposing new but less stringent conditions on a third. Hart-InterCivic's electronic voting systems are similar in concept to Sequoia's and Diebold's, but users make their choices with a device similar to a computer mouse. All three are known in elections lingo as "direct-recording electronic" terminals, or "DREs."

And the UC computer scientists' July 27 reports don't argue that optical scanners, which are subject to new security measures, are any better than touch-screen terminals, which are all but banned outright, Brady said. In focusing on protection from rogue computer hackers, Bowen ignored the various systems to record voters' intentions accurately, Brady added.

"It's very mystifying why she came to the decision she came to," Brady said.

Tom Courbat, a Murrieta activist, said he expects counties that use touch-screens to take legal action whether or not Riverside is among them.

"Expect this to be a continuing melodrama for months," said Courbat, a leader of the Southwest County group SAVE R VOTE, which initially advocated increased security for the Sequoia touch-screen machines, but later urged county officials to drop touch-screens altogether.

Since 174,000 voters went to the polls in the last presidential primary elections, in March 2004, the county's population has increased by about 16 percent, though more voters also tend to vote by absentee ballot. It remains to be seen whether California's splitting of this year's primaries will hurt voter turnout. While the presidential nominating contests and two or more referenda are expected on the ballot in February, state primary elections will be held in June. On the other hand, both major parties' presidential nominations are up for grabs next year, in contrast to 2004, when incumbent George W. Bush faced no opposition from within the Republican Party.

Courbat said he believes local officials in Riverside County and elsewhere are exaggerating the difficulties of making changes before the February elections.

"They say the timing couldn't be worse," Courbat wrote in an e-mail. "I say the timing couldn't be better! Even if they have to hand-count every ballot, three items to count is way easier than counting the typical 30 or so."

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

On the Net:

Restrictions set for voting machines (Aug. 5, 2007)

Elections officials await orders (Aug. 4, 2007)

Security experts warn of hacked votes (July 28, 2007)

Voting machines may be on way out (July 18, 2007)

County panel urges scrapping e-voting (July 13, 2007)

County eyes new absentee ballots (May 2, 2007)

Registrar pledges new elections security (April 25, 2007)

Voter activist struggles against the machines (April 22, 2007)

Hacker addresses voting panel (March 31, 2007)

State elections review prompts concern, optimism (March 27, 2007)