Despite federal money, no consistency in e-voting

BOSTON – Tens of millions of people will cast their votes Nov. 2 in one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in recent U.S. history. But voters across the U.S. will encounter different voting technologies and procedures, with many counties nationwide clinging to punchcard, lever machine and even paper ballots, and the transition to electronic voting moving slowly in many states.

Two years after Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to revamp voting in the U.S. and phase out older voting systems, there is little consistency nationwide in adoption of the law and its provisions, including the use of modern, electronic voting technology. While some states have moved quickly to enact HAVA, elections officials elsewhere are waiting for more guidance from Washington, D.C., on which voting systems meet federal standards.

HAVA addresses a myriad of problems that arose in the contested 2000 presidential election. The act makes $3.9 billion in federal funds available to state and local governments to improve elections. That money includes billions devoted to improving voting processes and administration and $325 million to replacing outdated punchcard and lever voting machines.

While HAVA does not mandate particular voting technologies, it does require that voting systems be accessible to people with disabilities by 2006. That requirement in itself will prompt many counties to buy new voting equipment before the deadline, mostly direct recording electronic (DRE) systems with touch screen interfaces and features to accommodate blind and physically impaired voters.

HAVA money allowed Greenwood County, South Carolina, which already used Votronic DRE machines from Electronic Systems and Software Inc. (ES&S), to upgrade to newer model iVotronic systems, said Connie Moody, director of voter registration and elections for the county. The iVotronics have larger screens that display ballot information in color and a feature that allows voters to review ballots before casting them. Most importantly, the machines comply with accessibility requirements established by the Americans with Disabilities Act that are part of HAVA, she said.

The federal money for voting systems is especially welcome in poorer states, where funds for new voting equipment have often fallen victim to tight local budgets and the need to pay for schools and roads, said Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks election reform nationwide.

“Elections only happen once a year. … When you’re dealing with competing priorities, you focus on things that touch peoples lives,” he said.

In Wyoming, where lever voting machines purchased years ago are still in use, HAVA will eventually allow all of the state’s 23 counties to upgrade to some form of DRE technology, said Secretary of State Joe Meyer. Currently, only one county uses DRE technology, he said.

In South Carolina, many counties bought early-vintage DRE machines in the 1980s using state matching funds, but were unable to update those systems in recent years after state money dried up, said Donna Royson, deputy director of the South Carolina State Election Commission. HAVA money is now helping South Carolina to move to a uniform system of voting machines statewide, she said.

However, while HAVA made money available to help with purchases and to speed the replacement of punchcard and lever machine systems, it didn’t fully fund the purchase of new machines. Instead, the legislation left it up to each state to develop its own plan to comply with the legislation and required matching funds from states to qualify for federal dollars.

“HAVA sets federal mandates on voting. However, nowhere in the mandates does it say what machines to use, how many there should be per precinct. Frankly, there isn’t even a mandate to replace punchcards and lever machines. … (HAVA) left election administration at the state and local level, and that leads to disparities,” Seligson said.

In states with a tradition of “top down” management, HAVA has led to uniformity across counties. In states with a tradition of local control, the law’s leniency has resulted in a patchwork system of voting technology and slower progress.

“One reason we’re a bit slower is because we’re reluctant to hand counties unfunded mandates,” said Jonathan Black, director of research for the Texas Secretary of State’s office. “We like to give counties as much choice as possible. They interpret their own needs best, so we’re going to stay in the direction of giving them as many choices as we can.”

Currently, 13 of Texas’ 248 counties use DRE technology, though those counties include the state’s major population centers, such as Austin, Dallas and Houston.

In states slow to make changes mandated by HAVA, voters could have no access or inconsistent access to updated voting technology on Nov. 2.

For example, an informal survey by IDG News Service of counties with DRE machines found variability in the number and type of DRE voting systems that will be used nationwide, with some counties relying on a small number of machines to handle what is expected to be record turnout according to data provided by election officials.

Greene County, Pennsylvania, will use 47 Unilet Patriot DRE machines purchased before the passage of HAVA for its 44 polling places and approximately 25,000 voters — about one DRE machine for every 531 voters, according to Frances Pratt, director of registration and elections for the county, which has been using the Patriot systems since 1998.

In contrast, Greenwood County, South Carolina, has 187 iVotronic systems in use across its 33 precincts and 37,000 voters, one for every 197 voters, Moody said.

The problem, say voting experts, is a system that has long relied on local money rather than federal dollars to fund elections, leading to disparities between counties.

For example, South Carolina is already in phase one of implementing its HAVA plan, which calls for the deployment of state-purchased ES&S iVotronic machines, one DRE machine for every 200 voters. Federal funds will make the voting experience uniform in rich and poor counties, without requiring any local money be spent, Royson said.

But elsewhere, state governments and localities have put off purchasing DRE equipment as they wait for the federal government to provide more guidance. To compound problems, the federal government has moved slowly to establish committees, mandated under HAVA, to create technical standards for electronic voting systems, even as it made money available to purchase electronic voting machines and required states to submit plans to comply with the new law.

The result is that some states such as Maryland and Nevada are using DRE technology statewide, and others such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming are using it in only a small number of counties.

“States are all over the map,” said Wyoming Secretary of State Meyer. “HAVA was supposed to have standards to protect us in terms of these voting systems, but now they say they’re going to have them in 2005, by the earliest.”

Wyoming is one of several states still evaluating e-voting technology and will not choose new voting equipment until after the Nov. 2 election when federal guidelines become clearer, Meyer said.

HAVA sets strong guidelines on issues such as accessibility, but is silent on many of the most pressing issues facing the country’s election system, leaving it to states and localities to evaluate and decide what technology to use and how much of it to use, electionline.org’s Seligson said. While HAVA will help people with disabilities and will prevent voters from being turned away at the polls, Seligson finds it unlikely to change disparities between what voting systems are used.

Giving the federal government control of elections is one way to ensure consistency nationwide, but that is unlikely, given the long tradition of locally run elections, Seligson said. “Most people like things the way they are,” he said.

Elections officials across the country expressed confidence in locally run elections, saying that improvements in poll-worker training and policies regarding voter registration and what constitutes a vote will prevent a repeat of problems that occurred in 2000, most notably in Florida.

“We’ve been successfully administering elections according to Ohio law for generations,” said James Lee, a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. “We have the policies, procedures, laws, training and equipment in place to once again have a successful election.”