4/24 Daily Camera: Voting concerns remain; state dictates recounts

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_2834141,00.html 
Voting concerns remain
Boulder voting officials say state dictates recounts
By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
April 24, 2004

Two of Boulder County's top election officials told a curious and sometimes hostile crowd Friday afternoon that they're slowly making some of the changes activists want to see in policy on voting machines - but decision-making power resides over their heads.

Linda Salas, the county's clerk and recorder, and Tom Halicki, the county's election manager, told members attending a Plan-Boulder County luncheon at the Boulder Public Library that they've been lobbying Secretary of State Donetta Davidson to approve procedures designed to improve vote-count accuracy.

"Boulder County is usually the one trying to do things differently," Salas said.
 
The controversy that has had activists dogging Salas and Halicki started when the county began shopping for new voting machines.

The federal Help America Vote Act requires counties across the country to do away with old punch-card machines. But many voting watchdogs distrust electronic systems proposed to replace the card-punch machines, because many of the newer systems tally votes electronically without producing a paper record.

Watchdogs say that leaves plenty of room for error or tampering, and they insist voting machines should produce a paper record of the votes cast. That way, a suspicious vote tally could always be checked by recounting the ballots by hand.

Their fears were partly eased when the county settled on local vendor Hart-Intercivic to provide machines. The Hart machines use a paper ballot that is counted electronically.

But the state law, as implemented by the Secretary of State's Office, requires that recounts be conducted by the same method as the original count - which makes the paper trail "meaningless," activist Evan Ravitz said.

"It violates a basic principle of accounting, which is that you count things in two ways," he said.

Salas said her office is making headway on that issue. She said Davidson has made a tentative offer to let Boulder County conduct recounts by hand.

But Neal McBurnett, another activist, said the machines still have problems. The computer coding that's used to tally votes, he said, is owned by the company and not accessible to inspection by the public.

Forcing vendors to share their proprietary software could drive companies out of business, Halicki said. "If I was a private investor, and word came out that a company was going to give away their secrets, I would be disinclined to invest in them."

Contact Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or morganr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx