SAN DIEGO -- Despite objections from a dozen public speakers who said electronic voting machines put democracy at risk, San Diego County supervisors ended an 18-month process Tuesday by agreeing to spend $30 million to buy 10,200 computerized, "touch screen" voting machines.

Officials said about 90 percent of the money needed to pay for the machines will come from state or federal grants.

County election officers said that the new touch-screen system, created by Ohio-based Diebold Systems Inc., is secure and more accurate than the old punch-card ballot system it is scheduled to replace in March 2004. The machines have been certified by the state's chief elections officer, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

But a dozen speakers at Tuesday's board meeting said they don't trust electronic voting machines in general -- especially when they do not offer voters "paper trails," printouts of their ballots that give voters tangible proof of how they voted.

County Registrar Sally McPherson said that the Diebold machines will eventually include printout features, but that the state won't require them until July 2006.

Oceanside resident Otto Hunt, one of the dozen speakers who asked county supervisors to delay buying the electronic voting machines, told the board, "I speak to you as a worried voter. I'm worried that my March 2004 vote may not count.

"With the Diebold touch-screen voting machine, when I leave the poll, my vote may be just a brief magnetic field on a spinning disc, nothing I can see," Hunt said. "Please, give voters the certainty they deserve: A paper trail they can see."

Another speaker, Irene Rose from Rancho Santa Fe, invoked the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election, when Republican George W. Bush narrowly prevailed over Democrat Al Gore after losing the popular vote and enduring weeks of debate over how votes should be counted in the swing state of Florida.

"If ever there was a time in our history that this country's faith in our election process was critical, it's now," Rose said. "The election system has to be right on target, because the scars of the collective psyche of at least 50 percent of those who voted are deep … Unverifiable, easily manipulated, inadequate voting mechanisms that call into question our state and national election outcomes will trigger a constitutional crisis."

San Diego County, like many others across the state and country, is being forced to change its election system by 2004 because of the 2000 presidential fiasco in Florida. The debate over "hanging chads," and "dimpled chads" led California and federal officials to ban punch-card ballots in 2001.

On Tuesday, McPherson, the registrar, said that the Diebold machines had been blessed by the state and were secure.

The state's November certification of the Diebold system was "conditional," but McPherson said that was a formality and full certification is expected Dec. 16.

"I was there at the certification hearing," McPherson said. "They recommended certification, and there was never a question as to the integrity of the system."

However, the county has had to delay its decision to buy the Diebold equipment for months because it took state officials longer than expected to certify them. At the same time, Diebold, a company known for creating security systems for automatic teller machines, has suffered several public relations setbacks.

In July, computer scientists at John Hopkins and Rice universities sharply criticized Diebold's machines, saying among other things that security flaws in the machines could let individual voters cast multiple ballots and allow insiders such as election workers, software engineers and even janitors to hack into the system and change votes.

Diebold said the study was inaccurate, and the report was later called into question when it was revealed that one of the scientists had previous financial ties to a rival of Diebold that also builds electronic voting systems.

However, others also criticized Diebold's machines, and company officials said Ohio inspectors found security flaws in its systems after buying the machines. Diebold representative Frank Kaplan said Tuesday that the company had fixed the problems, but that Ohio officials were still weighing the possibility of using a different company.

Supervisor Greg Cox said that it was a normal reaction for people to fear new things when they are introduced. He said that based upon the state's certification, he had "no concerns at all" about Diebold.

But Oceanside couple Jim and Sharlene Hamilton said they were angry and would vote in the future by mail, because absentee ballots will still be made of paper.

"On paper, (I'll vote)," Sharlene Hamilton said loudly. "I'm not using their stupid machines."

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