Officials
say vote problems are solved
By ANNA M. TINSLEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Tarrant County election officials say they've worked out the kinks
in the way they tabulated votes in the March 7 primary and believe that
problems such as programming glitches that led to massive overcounts of
votes that night will not be repeated in Tuesday's runoff election.
Some internal election procedures have
also been changed, software altered and the tabulating of some data
simplified. And election workers are more familiar with the new electronic
voting equipment that federal rules now require nationwide.
"Anything you do, you want to make
sure it works properly," said Gayle Hamilton, interim elections
administrator for Tarrant
County.
"Problems we found in the primary have been checked and won't be
repeated."
A computer programming glitch for the
primary election counted some votes multiple times and boosted the final
tally in the Republican and Democratic primaries by as much as 100,000
votes. Officials with Hart InterCivic, the company that made the equipment
and wrote the software, said a procedural error led to inflated counts when
totals from early voting, absentee-by-mail voting and election day voting
were merged on election night.
But new problems can still emerge, said
Dan Wallach, an associate professor at Rice University
who specializes in computer security and electronic voting.
"No voting system can ever be
foolproof," he said. "I would like to see the state investing
more resources into election system certification and testing.
"If they could catch these problems
in advance, we would be able to avoid problems when they occur in the
field."
A new approach
A slew of local and election officials
will be among those monitoring results at election headquarters Tuesday
night.
Hart officials, who were on hand for the
primary election, say they plan to have two representatives in Tarrant County and about 60 others statewide
at election officials' request.
Hart workers say they will help local
election officials brush up on training, checklists and more to make sure
runoff results are accurate, said Phillip Braithwaite, Hart vice president.
"Our goal is to assist the Tarrant
County Elections Office and make their interaction with Hart machines and
software as easy and user-friendly as possible while upholding the utmost
security and accuracy standards," Braithwaite said in a written
statement.
Local party officials say they also plan
to be at the Tarrant
County election
headquarters to observe the tabulation and reporting of election results.
"That's the place to be if something
should go wrong," said Stephanie Klick, chairwoman of the Tarrant
County Republican Party. "Being there, I'll know if there's a
problem."
Klick said county election officials have
taken steps to fix past problems.
"I really don't anticipate more
problems," she said. "But obviously, unforeseen things can
happen."
Tarrant County Democratic Party Chairman
Art Brender said that the bulk of the problems have been solved but that he
wants to be at election headquarters to make sure the process goes
smoothly.
"Hopefully some of the other
difficulties are going to be resolved by procedural changes," Brender
said. "The experience of having gone through one election with the
equipment should make it better."
Both parties recently monitored a test of
more than 800 electronic and paper voting machines to make sure all were
working properly for Tuesday's election. Over several days, half a dozen
teams of workers tested the machines and runoff ballot.
"No problems were found with the
machines," Hamilton
said. "There were no problems found with the machines before the first
primary, either. It was a problem with the procedures we used election
night."
Some of those procedures will change, Hamilton said.
In the runoff, officials will use the same
software that mistakenly added votes March 7. But the programming has been
fixed, Hamilton
said.
Also, electronic and paper vote totals
will be combined at election headquarters instead of relying on election
judges at each precinct to handle some of the work, she said.
"This will make it easier for
them," Hamilton
said.
Election officials say they won't cut down
on staff available that night, although a significantly smaller turnout is
expected.
"It still takes the same number of
people to conduct the elections," she said.
Nationwide concern
Tarrant County is not the only place where problems were reported
with electronic voting equipment during the primary election.
Other problems discovered in Texas
included discrepancies in Tom Green County, where officials mistakenly used
the same machine for early voting and election day voting, and in Webb
County, where a technical malfunction because of improperly programmed
voting machines delayed the release of results.
Secretary of State Roger Williams said the
election went as well as could be expected, with many Texas communities struggling to put in
place computerized machines required under the federal Help America Vote
Act. Texas
was the first state to hold a primary under the act, Williams said in a
recent news release.
"The lesson learned in Texas is that new
systems require new training," Williams said. "Electronic voting
promises greater accuracy, accessibility and reliability and less
opportunity for fraud.
"Moreover, electronic voting systems
offer voters with disabilities the opportunities to vote independently and
in private."
IN THE KNOW
Primary runoff
Local voters will cast ballots in two
runoff races for Democrats and six for Republicans from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The GOP will choose candidates for the
Precinct 3 Tarrant County commissioner's seat, three justice of the peace
positions, the 324th Family District Court and a seat on the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals.
Democrats will choose candidates for U.S.
senator and lieutenant governor.
www.tarrantcounty.com/evote
SOURCE: Tarrant County
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