The 2004 election year officially began March 9 when Florida held its presidential preference primary, the first of several statewide elections this year. The eyes of the nation were on Florida, as evidenced by the well-known faces of national journalists who were here to cover not the election's outcome but the voting process itself.
By any measure, Florida and Pasco County passed the test, recording a smooth, trouble-free, accurate first statewide election of the year.
In Pasco County, we recorded an unusually large turnout for a March election, due largely to Pasco's growing population, and an unprecedented number of voters exercising their civic duty through absentee and early voting options.
The election also provided another test for touch screen voting systems, which are in use in Pasco and 14 other counties, comprising half of Florida's population. On this measure too, Pasco and Florida passed the test. Florida's touch screen systems have proven to be reliable and accurate.
The touch screen machines have been particularly well-received by our senior citizens, who find them easy to use, and by voters with some disabilities, who are able to vote privately for the first time in their lives.
As one retiree, who voted on touch screen machines for the first time, was quoted as saying in some of the newspaper stories: "If they can figure out how to play 50 bingo cards at once, I think they all can handle this. It was easy enough."
Voter confidence in touch screen voting rises with each successful election. Yet, national media reports threaten to shake that confidence unnecessarily by focusing on machines (being used in other states), which don't meet the criteria for Florida's high standards.
Each voting machine used in Pasco has gone through a rigorous state certification process and is retested by local elections officials before every election. At the federal level, our voting system is evaluated by independent testing authorities that make sure the system is up to speed with the Federal Elections Commission testing standards.
It is misleading to call the machines computers. In fact, they are specially designed voting machines that use computer technology but are designed for one purpose only: recording votes. In that sense, they differ significantly from generalized computers.
In Pasco, each machine has three back-up systems to preserve votes cast up to that moment. So even if the main system failed, votes already cast would not be lost. And each machine is an independent, stand-alone unit not connected to the Internet or to any other machine. So they are not subject to hacking as some people, without all the facts, have suggested.
Problems with other electronic voting systems that have been reported again and again in national media stories involve systems that are not certified in Florida because they don't meet Florida's high certification standards. These problems are not applicable to machines used in Florida, a crucial point that is lost when national media paint a picture with a broad brush.
Some have suggested attaching printers to touch screen machines as a further back-up. I have no doubt that technology will continue to evolve and that Florida will remain on the leading edge of those advancements. But proponents of printers need to understand that the technology to attach specialized, view-only printers to touch screen machines hasn't been developed yet and cannot possibly be ready by the November election. Once the policy decision is made by either our Congress or our state Legislature to incorporate printers in our voting processes, Pasco County will quickly move in that direction to comply with this requirement.
The process of developing, testing and certifying this printing technology takes time and must be subject to the extreme scrutiny and high standards that our current systems undergo in order to ensure that the electoral process is secure. As a starting point, the Federal Elections Commission must first develop testing standards for certification of printers. These standards have not yet been developed. It is unlikely that the technology could be developed, tested, certified, mass produced, purchased and attached to our existing machines, and poll workers retrained on how to use them, in seven months.
The Legislature will certainly debate whether printers should be added in the future, once they are developed and certified. That is a decision all of us who have a responsibility for elections will have to study and consider carefully. It is not a simple issue. In fact, the idea of attaching printers to touch screen machines has drawn opposition from some advocates for persons with disabilities and from the League of Women Voters. The League recently released a statement saying, "A voter-verified paper trail requirement undermines voting access for people with disabilities or limited English proficiency, raises costs, fails to guarantee security, unnecessarily complicates the voting process, undermines federal certification standards, and slows the replacement of outdated voting machines."
In the meantime, as our March 9 primary demonstrated, we currently have a system that the voters can trust and that will serve us well in this important presidential election year. I urge Pasco County voters to learn more about the voting system we have by attending a demonstration, visiting our Web site, or stopping by any elections office.
