California rejects Diebold, citing failure rate of TEN PERCENT

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http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_2898218

 

State rejects e-voting system

Counties scramble to replace Diebold machines

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

 

After possibly the most extensive testing ever on a voting

system,

California has rejected Diebold's flagship electronic

voting machine

because of printer jams and screen freezes, sending local

elections

officials scrambling for other means of voting.

 

" There was a failure rate of about 10 percent, and that's

not good

enough for the voters of California and not good enough for

me, " said

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.

 

If the machines had been used in an actual election, the

result could

have been frustrated poll workers and long lines for

thousands of

voters, said elections officials and voter advocates on

Thursday.

 

" We certainly can't take any kind of risk like that with

this kind of

device on California voters, " McPherson said.

 

Rejection of the TSx by California, the nation's largest

voting system

market, could influence local elections officials from Utah

to

Mississippi and Ohio, home of Diebold corporate

headquarters, where

dozens of counties are poised to purchase the latest

Diebold touchscreen.

 

State elections officials in Ohio say they still have

confidence in the

machines.

 

" Absolutely, " said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the Ohio

Secretary of

State's Office.

 

But McPherson's decision did send California counties from

San Diego to

Alameda to Humboldt hunting for potential alternatives to

their plans to

use the TSx.

 

By January 2006 every polling place nationwide must offer

at least one

handicapped-accessible voting machine — touch screens are

one example —

and all California touch screens must offer a countable

paper record so

voters and election officials can verify the accuracy of

electronic

votes. So far, no voting system has been state- approved

that meets both

requirements.

 

" This is a muddle because there is no certified system

right now, " said

Elaine Ginnold, acting registrar of voters in Alameda

County. " We have

to look at all of the nonoptions. "

 

McPherson denied approval of the TSx after a series of

failedtests,

culminating in a massive, mock election conducted on 96 of

the machines

in a San Joaquin County warehouse. San Joaquin is one of

three

California counties that purchased a total of 13,000 TSx

machines in

2003 for more than $40 million and have paid to warehouse

them ever since.

 

For eight hours on July 20, four dozen local elections

officials and

contractors stood at tables and tapped votes into the

machines to

replicate a California primary, one of the most complex

elections in the

nation. State officials watched as paper jams cropped up 10

times, and

several machines froze, requiring a full reboot for voting

to continue.

 

Diebold Election Systems Inc. plans to fix the problems and

reapply for

California's approval within 30 days, company spokesman

David Bear said.

 

" They had 10,000 ballots and 10 paper jams. Obviously that

needs to be

looked at and addressed, and it will be, " he said. " But it

needs to be

put into perspective. "

 

Elections officials and voting activists said they had

never heard of

more extensive testing for a single voting system, outside

of an actual

election. Kim Alexander, president of the Davis-based

California Voter

Foundation, said McPherson deserves credit for ordering

rigorous testing.

 

Ordinarily, states and the National Association of State

Electionss approve voting systems after labs hired by the

manufacturers

perform tests on a handful of machines. The Diebold TSx

managed to get

through those tests — twice. But none of the testing

standards addresses

printers on electronic voting machines, even though more

than 20 states

either require a so-called paper trail or are debating such

a requirement.

 

For years, voters have reported frozen screens and other

glitches in the

polling place.

 

" It's always been the voters' word against election

officials' and the

vendors', " Alexander said. " Now we have real proof right

before the eyes

of state elections officials. "

 

Reliable voting equipment has been a problem before for

Diebold in

California. In the weeks before the March 2004 presidential

primary, the

firm rushed a new device called a voter-card encoder

through assembly,

testing and temporary state approval. Hundreds of the

devices broke down

on election day. Without the devices, thousands of voters

in two of

California's largest counties, San Diego and Alameda, could

not vote on

Diebold's touch screens. Lines developed, and hundreds

walked away

without voting.

 

California withdrew approval for some Diebold voting

systems, and

company stock sagged. Elections experts said McPherson's

decision

probably saved the company from a repeat.

 

In the Bay Area, Alameda and San Joaquin counties had

planned to use all

TSx machines in the 2006 elections, and Marin County

planned to put at

least one machine in each of its polling places.

 

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman.

 

 

 

 

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