They'll be in town, but distrust for electronic voting machines has some Democrats asking for paper.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published February 16, 2004
NEW PORT RICHEY - Jan Lentz won't be out of town March 9, and she has no problem making it to the polls.
But the retired office manager from New Port Richey still plans to vote by absentee ballot.
"I call it Plan B," she said, chuckling.
Lentz belongs to a group of Democrats who distrust the touch screen voting machines used in Pasco and 15 other Florida counties. Despite officials' assurances that the machines are reliable and secure, Lentz fears the computerized devices could somehow lose votes or allow the tallies to be manipulated.
She wants a paper trail of each vote.
Kurt Browning, Pasco's supervisor of elections, says adding printers to each voting machine would be costly and unnecessary. In a Feb. 12 letter to local elections officials, the state Division of Elections said touch screen ballots don't need to be printed out for a recount, because there is no question about how voters intended to vote on such machines.
So voters like Lentz plan to create their own trail by voting on paper absentee ballots.
"If a very suspicious result is announced by the elections officials, we will have a piece of paper to count," said Lentz, chairwoman of the Voting Machine Task Force for the West Pasco Democratic Club. "You can't count electronic signals."
Although requests for absentee ballots in Pasco County are way up - 5,097 for the March 9 election so far, compared to 1,844 in the March 2000 presidential primary - it is impossible to tell how many of those voters share Lentz's concerns.
Voters don't have to state a reason for requesting an absentee ballot. Browning suspects much of the increase comes from people wanting to vote on the Penny for Pasco sales tax hike on the March 9 ballot.
But the controversy over touch screen machines also has heated up. In Broward and Palm Beach counties last month, 134 votes came up blank in a special House district election decided by 12 votes.
"Our biggest concern is the lack of voter confidence," said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. "I think a lot of people are going to vote absentee because, for one reason or another, they don't have confidence in the current system."
Browning encourages people to vote by the method that makes them most comfortable.
"I would encourage anyone who doesn't feel comfortable voting on touch screen machines to request an absentee ballot, and we will mail them one," the elections supervisor said.
But he said the machines have passed independent inspections and surpassed state and federal standards. In the recent election in Broward and Palm Beach counties, he said, the machines gave voters two warnings that they were about to cast blank ballots.
"We cannot get into the voter's head," Browning said. "Why did they cast a blank ballot? That's pure speculation on our part.
"I want my voters to have a level of confidence with their system," he added. "I'm not going to buy a voting system that isn't safe, secure or accurate."
Critics focus on a couple of areas:
The software. The machines, which are about the size of laptop computers, use a Microsoft program specifically designed for elections. Lentz fears the voting machines, like regular computers, could crash and lose data. Worse, she fears, someone could program a bug into the software to manipulate votes.
But the voting machines have three hard disks, Browning said, ensuring an electronic record of each vote is backed up twice. And within 10 days before each election, Browning must test the machines to make sure they accurately process test votes. Any bugs in the software would show up then, he said.
The hackers. After the polls close, officials electronically transmit the results from each precinct to Browning's office. Lentz fears a hacker could tap into the data and change the results.
Browning said the results are transmitted over a closed line. "Hackers cannot get into this network," he said. "It's not the Internet."
Plus, he said, a would-be hacker would have to manipulate the results in several places.
Officials print the vote tallies at each precinct after polls close, he said. One copy is taped to the precinct door; another copy is placed with the electronic cartridges holding the votes from each touch-screen machine.
Officials later check the paper tally against the results that were electronically transmitted to Browning's office. If there is a discrepancy, officials can look at the vote counts on each cartridge.
"It's not like we modem it in, assume it's correct and go home," Browning said. "We check name by name, number by number to make sure those (vote) totals are the same."
Even with those assurances, voters like Louise Hinkley of Port Richey want a paper trail. Hinkley, a retired nurse and president of the local Democratic Women's Club, already has her absentee ballot.
"I know that's the only secure way to vote," she said. "I don't trust the (electronic) ballots."
- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
- Bridget Hall Grumet covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is hall@sptimes.com
