4/26 Colorado Daily: County prepares for Hart operation

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2004/04/26/news/news05.txt
County prepares for Hart operation
Richard Valenty
Colorado Daily
04/26/04


Last Thursday, the Board of Boulder County Commissioners voted to accept a contract bid for a new county voting system, and county officials now have little more than three full months to educate election officials and the public about the system before the August primary elections.

Linda Salas, Boulder County Clerk, and Tom Halicki, Boulder County elections manager, gave a presentation Friday to citizen group PLAN-Boulder County about the "BallotNow" election system by vendor Hart InterCivic, which will be used in the 2004 election process assuming a contract is officially approved Tuesday.

For properly registered citizens, voting at a precinct polling place in Boulder County should be very simple in 2004. Voters will fill in ovals on a paper ballot and hand it back to an election official, exactly like the last county precinct election except that voters used punch-card ballots in 2002.

However, many citizens, in Boulder County and nationwide, have become more interested in understanding what happens to a ballot after the vote has been cast.

According to Salas, after a ballot is scanned, BallotNow captures a digital image of the ballot. If the system catches a discrepancy on a ballot like an "overvote," where a voter accidentally marks a second oval in a contest where only one candidate can win, the system will "flag" or identify the ballot as being incorrect.

After being "flagged" election judges would view a projection of the digital image of the ballot on a wall, and use the image to determine voter intent. According to Salas, this will improve the "transparency" of the election, since poll watchers would be able to view the flagged ballots along with the election officials in the counting room.

Three members of the group Citizens for Verifiable Voting (CVV) attended Friday's meeting. In late 2003, CVV was one group that lobbied county officials to use a paper ballot system instead of touch-screen Direct Record Electronic (DRE) machines, most of which record votes electronically without producing a paper ballot.

While Boulder County will be using paper ballots in 2004, the Hart system records the information from each scanner on a memory card, and the information on the cards would then be tabulated by proprietary Hart software called "Tally."

CVV member Evan Ravitz said Friday that since the paper ballots are tabulated electronically, "calling paper ballots the official record is extremely misleading." Paper ballots will be saved in a sealed room after the elections, but if a recount would be necessary, the ballots could only be hand-counted if so ordered by the Secretary of State.

Colorado Revised Statute 1-10.5-108 (2), "Method of Recount" says that unless directed by the Secretary of State, "the ballots cast shall be recounted utilizing the same procedures, methods, and processes that were utilized for the original count of the ballots cast."

Salas said she and other Colorado county clerks have discussed the recount issue with Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, but currently county clerks don't have the authority to order full hand recounts, precinct hand recounts or hand counts of statistically significant ballot samples to test electronic accuracy.

"We (Boulder County election officials) would love to have the authority to do a hand recount if necessary," said Salas.

Davidson offered a brief e-mail response to the Colorado Daily Friday, writing that her office "will use its rule-making authority to address methods of recounting of ballots in elections in statutory recount situations."

"In furtherance of this process, the Secretary of State's office will hold public hearings in order to hear testimony from the public and election officials to promulgate a rule that effectively addresses this issue," the e-mail read.

Boulder County has not yet signed the roughly $1.5 million Hart contract. Citizens can still view the contract on the Web at www.co.boulder.co.us/bocc and may offer written comment to the commissioners prior to their 10 a.m. business meeting Tuesday.