Legitimate questions about the integrity of touch screen voting have generated a call for printed records. But adding printers to the process raises yet more questions.
Published February 9, 2004
Florida can't catch a break when it comes to voting controversies. After the disastrous 2000 presidential count and recount, the state replaced its antiquated punch card voting system and enjoyed a relatively smooth 2002 election. Touch screen machines, in particular, earned high praise for ease of use and finality of outcome.
The calm didn't last long. Now, little more than a year later, touch screen voting is being demonized as a flawed process that will require an expensive fix to save the 2004 election.
Voters would be wise not to rush to judgment, however. While some legitimate questions have been raised about touch screen technology, there is no credible evidence that the integrity of Florida's voting system is in jeopardy.
Yet that's the seed of doubt some Democratic officials are trying to plant in voters' minds. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, has sued Palm Beach County officials to force them to provide a printed backup for ballots cast on touch screens in the 2004 elections. So far, Wexler has succeeded in scaring the County Commission into allocating $3.2-million for the printers (in return for being released as defendants), but he has not served voter interests.
The matter isn't as dire - or as simple - as Wexler would have us believe. First, the two companies whose touch screens are approved for use in Florida - Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software - have only untested prototypes of printers. No printer has been certified for use by the state Division of Elections, and even if paper backups were available, it is not yet clear how they would add clarity to the voting process.
Here are just three of the many questions that need answers before printers might make sense:
Would voters see the printout before or after they cast their electronic ballots? (A paper copy provided before the ballot is cast would do little good because voters could still change their minds, and if a discrepancy were found after the ballot is cast, the vote could not be taken back or altered.) Who would be responsible for depositing the paper receipt in a secure container? (A printed backup could easily be misplaced, destroyed or altered, so it would add the element of human error to an otherwise automated process.) And if a discrepancy between the paper and electronic count should arise, which would be accepted as the official count? (The Legislature would have to make such a fundamental decision and it should do so only after serious deliberation.)
On such issues, Floridians should listen to the experts - their elections supervisors. As a group, those officials see no need for a paper backup to touch screens (which are used in 15 counties), but they also seem willing to consider any reasonable measure that will restore public confidence. The supervisors can start with a public education effort equal to the one that convinced Florida voters touch screens were the way to go in the first place. That might be the only way to reassure some voters who are suspicious of technology or who have been swayed by misinformation.
The supervisors have a compelling case to make for the protection they provide through their security measures. Despite some technical glitches in touch screens discovered by computer experts in Maryland - on Diebold Election Systems machines that are not approved for use here - Florida's touch screens are secure. The machines are not easily opened and are locked up between elections. Local supervisors don't have the source code that controls the machines, and multiple backup components inside the touch screens assure that a vote cast is a vote recorded.
In a recent election in South Florida, touch screens failed to record votes for 137 people, but it is not unusual that some voters would make no choice in a universal primary where only candidates from one party are on the ballot.
In fact, the secretary of state's office says there is no verifiable case where a vote on a touch screen machine has been lost or unrecorded. And no one has ever made a credible allegation of fraud.
So what is the rush? Unless Wexler's goal is to undermine voter confidence, he should drop his suit and cooperate in an orderly consideration of the issues he has raised. The state certification process is deliberative, as it should be, and can take up to a year.
Providing a paper trail of the votes recorded on touch screen machines could prove to be what it takes to win voter confidence. If it is done wrong, however, it would bring doubt and ridicule to another Florida election.
