Voting Technology
What’s Up in the Not-so-Distant Future
By Patrice Broussard
Bush vs. Gore was the closest 2000 Presidential Election in history thanks in part to Chad.
You
remember Chad don’t you? The little piece of paper left over from the punch-card ballot that came in pregnant, hanging
and dimpled varieties.
If the nation’s Secretaries of State have their way, chads may be a thing of
the past just in time for the 2004 election.
In this country, there are more than 600,000 antiquated punch card and mechanical
lever machines that are in desperate need of replacement.
Georgia wants to convert to all electronic voting.
Voters would cast their ballots using a touch screen similar to that of an ATM machine. Florida, that state responsible for
bringing this issue into the national spotlight, wants a scanned ballot, the same technology that’s used in grading
standardized tests like the SAT. The state’s current system is the subject of a lawsuit against the Secretary of State
Katherine Harris.
The Secretaries of State of the nation just want modern voting equipment and Congress might
give it to them in the form of $2.5 billion for upgrades. Rather than wait for Congress, California has come up with its own
proposal that would put the state on the cutting edge of voting technology.
In late June, the California
Assembly approved a measure that would generate $300 million to modernize the state’s voting equipment. The Voting Modernization
Bond Act of 2002 would allow counties to purchase touch screen voting systems, optical scan units and other modernized voting
equipment. More than 75 percent of the Golden State’s voters use punch cards.
“The integrity
of our democracy must be protected and that process begins in the voting booth. Every vote counts, and this measure will ensure
every vote is counted,” said Robert Hertzberg, the Speaker of the House for California’s State Assembly. “Some
of these systems are so out of date that election officials can have difficulty finding replacement parts and necessary technical
expertise to repair broken machines. These systems, while still functional, are very quickly becoming obsolete.”
A slew of government and professional task forces are busy looking into how to avoid another election fiasco like
the one in Florida last year. Some of the nations colleges and universities are looking into the problem as well.
Last year David Baltimore and Charles Vest, the Presidents of Cal Tech and MIT, established a voting technology project
studying the problems that plagued the 2000 election. Specifically, the Cal Tech/ MIT voting Project would evaluate the reliability
of the U.S. voting system and establish uniform performance guidelines. Another group, the Internet Voting Technology Alliance,
is working to develop and review standards that could be used in voting online.
The country may ready to
replace its old voting machines with new ones, but replacing the punch-card machines probably won’t be accomplished
by the 2004 election. A complete modernization, according to election officials and executives in the small voting equipment
industry, could take at least a decade.
Less than 12 companies in this country make voting equipment. Even
the largest of these companies have limited manufacturing capacities. More alarming still is that these companies don’t
have enough trained personnel to carry out a mass national election upgrade. The number of machines that need to be replaced
greatly outnumbers the industry’s annual production. According to analysts, without larger staffs and some serious financing,
it will be impossible for equipment makers to speed up production in time for 2004.
