info from Boulder Couty Clerk's office

[Chris Malley <cmalley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI... A friend of mine recently inquired about the DRE issue.
Here's the reply he received from Boulder County Clerk and Recorder
Elections Division Manager Tom Halicki.

-Chris


--
Thank you for your recent e-mail expressing your concern on this issue. If
you require more information, check our website.


Dear Boulder County citizen:


    There has been great concern voiced recently about the security aspects
and type of new voting systems being considered for purchase by Boulder County.
This letter is intended to answer the questions raised and alleviate concerns
about that process, the choices we face and the attributes being required by
such a system.

    First some background. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed by
Congress after the Florida General Election debacle of 2000 was intended to eliminate
the problems associated with punch card voting systems.

The HAVA mandates that ALL punch card systems be replaced with new systems ?
no exceptions ? by the 2004 general election. Despite the fact that Boulder
County's punch card system was not like the ones that created the problems with
partially punched "chad" in Florida and elsewhere, it was old and had
different, equally serious, system flaws due to its age.

Namely, the more than 20-year-old card readers were failing, intermittently,
to read parts of some ballots. This was discovered in the 2002 general
election where an uncharacteristic number of blank votes were discovered in the
computer tallies of seven precincts. Those precincts had to be recounted.

And while the recount did not affect the outcome of any of the races
involved, the mere fact that the machines being used were failing intermittently ? and
that the company that made them no longer existed and there were no other
companies repairing them or selling replacement parts ? indicated that with or
without the mandate of HAVA, Boulder County must replace its voting system this
year.

So in the spring and early summer of 2003, the newly elected Boulder County
Clerk and Recorder, Linda Salas, began drawing up specifications for a request
for proposal (RFP) for soliciting bids from vendors for a new voting system.

Understanding the various needs and requirements by the voting public of
Boulder County, the system requirements mandated by federal, state and local law,
as well as the strong feelings of the elected officials (herself included),
Salas included two system requirements in her RFP for the bidding companies to
meet.


* One was a Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines (touch screen
machines) component (in order to meet the federal requirement of HAVA and the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that calls for the presence of a system
that allows unassisted voting by persons with disabilities which is the key
function of a DRE system).

* The other is an optically scanned ballot system that would accommodate
the use of absentee/mail/provisional ballots.


    There have been people voicing adamant opposition to Boulder County
choosing a voting system that uses any kind of touch screen system (DRE) because it
relies on computer software to process the votes and does not provide a
"paper trail" with an actual ballot marked by the voter.

    The HAVA requires that there be at least one DRE system available at
every precinct. Therefore, DREs will be part of the voting system chosen by
Boulder County regardless. At present, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology has not yet established the federal requirements that such a system must
meet in order to be considered.

    However, the requirement that a verifiable paper trail be a central
component of whichever system is chosen has been a constant with all parties
involved.

When the commissioners met in June and created a committee to study the bids
for a new voting system, test out the various systems and make a
recommendation to Clerk and Recorder Salas about which one they felt was best, they made it
clear that whichever system was chosen, it must have a paper trail, not just
a computer record.

And the advisory committee studying the new systems has also said that a
paper trail must be a key element of the new system they recommend.

So this means that the system chosen will be comprised of some sort of
optically scanned paper ballot that is marked by the voter, scanned and recorded. In
case of a challenge, the ballots can be re-scanned, just as they were in the
recent mail ballot election. Ballots cast at a DRE voting machine would not
have a "paper trail" because the voting systems that are certified for use in
the State of Colorado currently do not print out a paper ballot that could then
be recounted.

Federal and state law requires that, in the case of a recount, the ballots
must be recounted in the same manner that they were counted originally. There
would be no hand count without a specific judicial ruling calling for such.

It must be noted that the county's old system ? and any new system ? has and
will rely on computers and software to "read" ballots and tabulate votes. So
even with a new system that uses paper ballots, a computer and software will be
an integral part of the process.


Where are we now?


    When Clerk and Recorder Linda Salas sent out her RFPs, she received
responses from eight vendors.

    The advisory committee attended a two-hour presentation by each vendor
demonstrating their voting systems. The committee also reviewed comments by
members of the public who tried out those systems at a day-long open house.

    The committee then narrowed down the field of applicants to four. They
are:

    * Diebold Election Systems of Ohio

    * Sequoia Voting Systems of California

    * Avante International Technology, Inc. of New Jersey

    * Hart InterCivic of Texas


    These four returned in early October and made longer, more in-depth
presentations to the advisory committee. A second public open house was held with
the four semi-finalists in mid-October.

    The committee's work was put on hold while Salas conducted the off-year,
mail ballot election. The committee is expected to gather for a final meeting
in December and make its recommendation to Salas about which vendor best meets
the requirements set forth both by Salas and Boulder County, the State of
Colorado and Congress.

    Salas will take this recommendation under advisement and make a
presentation to the Boulder County Commissioners at a public hearing in January where
she will present her own recommendation. At that time a decision will likely be
made.

The Boulder County Commissioners have the final say as to which system will
be chosen. The next opportunity for public input will be at the county
commissioner's meeting in January.

Given this information, there are several points that must be considered:

* The whole point of having a DRE system that does not produce a paper
ballot is to ensure that the vote of a disabled person is cast unassisted, just as
with an able voter. If a DRE printed a paper ballot or receipt, this could
defeat that purpose;

* Currently, there is no legal requirement that counties in Colorado must
have a paper ballot system and there is no system certified by the State of
Colorado that will produce a paper ballot from a DRE system. (Note: whichever
system is chosen must be certified by the State of Colorado. Boulder County
cannot select a system that is not certified by the state. The requirements for
state certification are set by state statute, which is, in turn, a product of the
state legislature.)

* Boulder County's voting system is not now nor will it be in the future
connected to the Internet. The results of our vote counts are tabulated by a
stand-alone computer, copied onto a disk and then downloaded onto the county's
Web site for public consumption. For this reason, there is no way a member of
the general public could "hack" into our system and tamper with our election
system.


    This is the way things stand today. If you have any further questions or
comments about this, contact Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Elections
Division Manager Tom Halicki at 303-413-7745 or via e-mail:
thalicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:thalicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
--