6/17 Daily Camera editorial/ERC report

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/editorials/article/0,1713,BDC_2489_3860994,00.html 

Making lemonade
Recommendations on voting will help - for now
Daily Camera
June 17, 2005

It was distressing to learn, in a report by Boulder County's Election 
Review Committee released this week, that the county's new, 
$1.4-million Hart InterCivic optical scanning system would, under 
"optimal" conditions, yield general election results in "24-28 hours."

In other words, working as intended, this "high-tech" system is a day 
late - on a good day - and short of ideal. According to Hart 
InterCivic, the system wasn't designed to handle a precinct-based 
general election.

It looks like taxpayers may have bought a bit of a lemon.

Nevertheless, for now, it's the system we've got. The county's old, 
relatively reliable punch-card machines were essentially nixed by the 
federal Help America Vote Act, which required counties to turn to 
different technology or lose funding.

The committee found that many factors contributed to the November 
debacle, in which the county took three days to count the vote. The 
biggest bug was ballots that were unreadable by the new machines, in 
part because the printer - Eagle Direct Inc. - did not have proper 
specifications. But a shortage of trained volunteers, a contingency 
plan in case of problems and other factors contributed.

The committee made some sound recommendations for the coming November 
vote, including: Using a mail ballot; rental or purchase of 
additional scanners; providing ballot specifications to potential 
printers; and better training for election judges.

Unrelated to the November delay, the committee also wisely urged the 
county to develop a legal, accurate system for a manual audit process.

The committee did good work. But even if it works perfectly, the Hart 
InterCivic system will be unacceptably slow in a general election. 
That's a real problem for the future.