Hillsborough commits to touch-screen voting

The county becomes the first in the bay area to formally decide to use the computers.

By KATHRYN WEXLER

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 3, 2001

TAMPA -- Hillsborough County is dumping its antiquated punch cards in favor of computerized touch-screen voting machines touted by state and local officials as the best way to fix Florida's election woes.

In a 5-2 vote Thursday, the County Commission heeded the recommendations, and warnings, of Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio and agreed to pay $12-million for the touch-screen computers.

The decision makes Hillsborough the first Tampa Bay area county to formally commit to the touch-screen system, which has not been used in a Florida election. After the vote, as a few well-wishers congratulated her, Iorio praised the commission for plunging into the future despite some reservations.

"I know it's difficult to change," Iorio said, "and they're making a major change."

After the 2000 presidential election debacle, Hillsborough was one of 41 counties in Florida ordered by the state Legislature to upgrade its voting systems before the September 2002 primary.

Pinellas and Pasco counties were also among those 41 counties. Pinellas has tentatively budgeted $15-million to fix its system, but has not committed to the touch-screen computers. Pasco told its elections supervisor in May to seek bids for the touch-screen computers at a cost of about $5.7-million.

Urban counties are more likely to chose touch-screen computers because they make it easy to reproduce lengthy ballots and ballots can be easily reproduced in different languages, Iorio said. Miami-Dade also voted in favor of buying the touch screens, at a cost of $25-million.

One of the most important features of the computers, Iorio said, was that the touch screens make it impossible to vote for more than one candidate in a given race, a problem that dogged the 2000 presidential election.

Hillsborough commissioners had considered purchasing an optical scan system with a startup cost of $3-million. But that system would not have eliminated the overvoting that voided thousands of votes in the 2000 election, Iorio said.

"We can invest in a system that counts every vote or we can invest in a system that does not count every vote," Iorio told commissioners.

Commissioners Ronda Storms and Pat Frank had concerns about the new technology and voted against the touch-screen computers. Storms said she didn't like that the screens could produce only images of the ballots cast.

Should there ever be allegations of elections fraud, Storms said, the computers "get rid of the evidence."

Commissioner Stacey Easterling countered that examining punch cards in the past election turned out to be subjective and inconclusive.

"Anonymous paper (ballots) in front of us only created a bigger problem," Easterling said.

Iorio had taken the optical-scan system and two touch-screen computers into the community to gauge responses from people of different ages, ethnicities and economic backgrounds. A majority favored the computers, she said.

She will now seek bids on the computers.

Commissioner Jim Norman reiterated a concern that the computers would quickly be obsolete because they represent the first wave of touch-screen voting technology.

Iorio was directed to see if the county could lease the computers, instead of buying them outright.

"It remains to be seen whether the vendors have leasing options," she said afterward.

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