1/30 Colorado Daily: County approves negotiations for Hart voting system

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2004/01/30/news/news03.txt
County approves negotiations for Hart voting system 
Ricard Velenty
Colorado Daily
01/30/2004


Boulder County moved one step closer to the purchase of a voting system for the 2004 election Thursday. The three-person Board of Boulder County Commissioners voted unanimously to allow contract negotiations to begin with Hart InterCivic, a voting system company with some of its operations in Lafayette.

The commissioners' vote may have been unanimous, but the bulk of citizen comment at Thursday's hearing asked the board to delay purchasing a system until issues of physical and digital security were addressed.

Neil McClure, Hart vice president/general manager, gave a presentation of the Hart "Ballot Now" system, which will be used in 2004 if a contract agreement is finalized.

McClure passed out paper ballots with fictitious candidate names to the commissioners, who filled them out using ink. The boxes to the left of the names were filled in fully, or with "X's" and check marks to demonstrate how the Hart system could recognize various markings as votes. The ballots were fed into a scanner for processing and tabulation.

The Hart system is designed to recognize irregularities on a ballot, such as undervotes, overvotes and voting for a write-in candidate. The system captures a digital image of the ballot, and for the demonstration, the image was projected onto a screen for all to see.

According to McClure, if a section of a ballot asks the voter to "select three candidates," the system recognizes that it should read three selections. In the demonstration, a ballot had only one candidate selected when three were asked for, so the system "flagged" that ballot and highlighted the section in question.

Election judges and poll-watchers would then be able to view the discrepancy on the screen and determine true voter intent. In the case of write-in votes, the tabulation system would be integrated with the county's voter registration system. One "voter" wrote in "George LeRoy Tirebiter," who was deemed an illegitimate candidate, and the vote was not tabulated.

After the demonstration, several members of Citizens for Verifiable Voting testified in opposition to purchasing, and in favor of leasing, a system in 2004. Joe Pezzillo, CVV spokesperson, said the county shouldn't purchase a system until it releases records of digital security testing.

Pezzillo mentioned that in tests of other nationwide voting systems, security problems were found after they were officially certified. Pezzillo also asked McClure to offer full disclosure of the Hart source code, so citizens could perform independent security evaluations.

In late 2003, county officials held a number of public hearings to evaluate Direct Record Electronic (DRE), or touch-screen voting machines. CVV and other citizens expressed enough concern over the digital security of DRE's that the county decided to use a paper ballot-based system, like Ballot Now, on Dec. 12.

The county did not hold public hearings between Dec. 12 and Jan. 8, when Linda Salas, Boulder County clerk and recorder, announced that she would recommend the purchase of the Hart system.

Al Kolwicz, head of Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results (CAMBER), filed an Open Records request with the county in January to learn more about the County's decision-making process in choosing Hart.

County officials replied that there were no e-mail or paper records kept.

"CAMBER couldn't get information through conventional business communications," said Kolwicz. "Has the clerk produced a paperless evaluation?"

Other speakers questioned the Hart system because it runs within a Microsoft Windows operating system, which some believe could lead to additional security problems.

The system, including software, computers, scanners and system integration, could cost $1,044,220, according to a Hart price sheet. According to Salas, that could change if the county buys six scanners at $55,000 each instead of four.

Federal money, through the Help America Vote Act legislation, could pay for between 80 and 95 percent of the cost, but Salas did not have an accurate figure Thursday.

Salas and Mike Harlan, county information technology manager, will now go to work on negotiating the Hart contract. The commissioners will vote on the contract at a later, unspecified date.