SecurePoll Electronic Voting Update

By Derek Dictson & Dan Ray

August 16, 2002

What’s Inside

Voters are getting the feel of new election equipment
eDemocracy in a Changing World
"Urgent" e-voting security consultation launched
The Nightmare Scenario Is Here - Computer Voting With No Paper Trail
Jeffco voters point fingers
Florida ready to move past chad of 2000 election
UK Electoral Commission Reports – 2002 eVoting Pilots
Suwanee Voters First In State To Use Electronic Voting Twice
District of Columbia to Provide Touch Screen in Every Precinct Under Settlement with Disabled Voters

News & Updates

Voters are getting the feel of new election equipment

By Kathy Bushouse

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

August 13 2002

For a person who doesn't know computers, the black voting machines with the oversized screens can look a bit intimidating at first.

But after a few minutes on Monday afternoon, Kitty Zimmerman, 92, was casting votes on the county's new touch-screen machine as if she'd done it a thousand times.

"I thought it was going to be so difficult because I don't understand computers," said Zimmerman, who lives west of Delray Beach. "I found it very easy, very simple."

Zimmerman was one of more than 80 people at the Heritage Park retirement community west of Delray Beach who tried out the new machines at a demonstration led by county Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore.

With four weeks to go until the Sept. 10 primary, LePore's workers aren't letting up in their effort to educate voters on how to use the county's new $14 million voting system. Demonstrations are scheduled for every week, seven days a week, until Election Day, Nov. 5.

She said many voters are nervous at first when they see the machines but are much more comfortable once they've tried it.

"If you know how to play video poker, you can use this machine," LePore told the crowd.

The county purchased the machines after the state Legislature outlawed the old punch-card machines, which received much of the blame for problems in the 2000 presidential election.

The touch-screen machines, first used in the county's spring municipal elections, have had a number of cheerleaders and critics. While many praised the machines' ease of use during their trial run, others have questioned whether the elections office has fully worked out potential problems.

But there were no complaints Monday.

Gerald Gross, who had trouble voting in the November 2000 election, said he's not nervous about voting again. After trying the new machines, he was quite happy.

"This is wonderful," said Gross, 74. "There's barely a way to make a mistake."

In addition to ensuring that voters know how to work the machines, LePore's election preparations have hit a familiar snag -- finding poll workers for the upcoming election.

Palm Beach County is about 1,200 poll workers short of the 5,000 people needed. LePore has launched an extensive publicity campaign to find more help.

As in most counties, LePore has no problem finding workers in retirement communities such as Century Village west of Boca Raton.

"It is in areas where working people live that we are having a problem," she said. "We have long waiting lists [for poll workers] in all of our retirement communities, and none of them will drive."

Areas where there is a critical need for poll workers include northern and western Palm Beach County, LePore said.

Poll worker volunteers must have two hours of orientation, then go to additional training classes. Poll workers make a minimum of $105 for a day's work. Precinct leaders make slightly more.

Broward County's predicament is worse: 3,000 poll workers and 110 locations for polls are needed.

Broward officials blamed the poll worker shortage on many elections veterans quitting rather than learning new electronic machines, and the shortage of polls on growth that has outstripped the number of buildings that can set aside a large area on Election Day for voting.

Many Florida counties also have been trying to fill openings in their new executive loan programs, where businesses and other private groups are being encouraged to lend employees to work at the polls. They would be in addition to the poll workers, helping to resolve problems and assist voters with problems.

Anyone interested in being a poll worker for Palm Beach County should call the elections office at 561-656-6200.

eDemocracy in a Changing World

12 August 2002

eGov monitor Weekly

By Thomas B Riley

Executive Director and Chair

Commonwealth Centre for Electronic Governance

The application of eGovernment is beginning to change, in some small ways, the traditional hierarchal forms of government. To deliver public services electronically, new types of interactions are often needed between departments or agencies, which are in turn changing the internal dynamics of government. The rise of electronic democracy - or eDemocracy - is part of this e-evolution which is also altering the relationship between government and citizen. Much has been said and written about this phenomenon but the question remains: will eDemocracy change the nature of citizen interaction with government and, more importantly, the political process? And, if so, how dramatic will this shift be?

eGovernment is rapidly developing in many countries, especially in the developed world. The UK is taking the lead in developing strategies for eParticipation and eVoting, as evidenced in the Government's recent consultation paper, In the Service of Democracy. While this paper represents an important first step, it is actually just the beginning of the wide potential of eDemocracy.

eDemocracy in the Future: Will We See Significant Change?

The OECD Public Administration (PUMA) Group, that is conducting extensive studies on eGovernment and eDemocracy, has articulated the three main components needed for online dealings between government and the citizen. These are: Information, participation and consultation.

Many governments are pledging to move in this direction but progress towards results has been slow. The precepts are easy to articulate but attaining desired results is proving to be more difficult to achieve. Part of this can be explained through the hierarchal nature of organisations and the current role of representative government in democratic societies. External groups and individuals, on an international scale, are working to change this dynamic. But governments are moving at a slower and different pace than groups and citizens who are using the Internet to influence the evolution of government programmes, policy and legislative implementations.

Historically, the relationship between government and citizen has been a top-down affair with those in elected authority controlling the agenda. The advent of interactive technologies has seen the nature of the citizen begin to take on a new shape and form.

The potential of eGovernment to empower the citizen has been the subject of much discussion. New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer access to worldwide information, increased capacity to communicate and interact online, as well as a host of other rich experiences to individuals with the means to access them. Governments around the world have developed many programmes to cross the digital divides that exist in their own countries and stimulate their economies through grants, investment and other mechanisms. But as to empowerment of the citizen having an impact on government or the political process, there is still a long way to go before the dream and ideal of eDemocracy is reached.

Tools are being developed for online consultations between the government, citizen, action groups and business. But the results are limited. There is much discussion and interaction between groups and citizens and, to a certain extent, between government and the citizenry. However eDemocracy is evolving within society more on the level of group to group and peer-to-peer interactions with participants using ICTs to enhance and better their lives. The latter is a form of eDemocracy that has minimal influence from government, except to the degree that people might use online or offline government information to further their work. Community and online groups work well when these people are driven by individual interest, no matter what the cause.

eDemocracy, in relation to government and how we are governed, if and when it takes hold as a mass movement will have to be driven by a large section of the population who firstly, want to participate actively in government at some level and secondly, are willing to see a new form of democracy evolve.

The change will depend on the degree to which people want to be more engaged in government and on the emergence of new political thinkers who will think through to the next evolution of democracy.

ICTs are putting a certain amount of power, albeit a small one to date, in the hands of the citizen at large. eDemocracy is alive and vibrant, through citizens and interest groups, in many jurisdictions around the world, but in terms of government budgets, funding allocated to democracy programmes has been limited compared to the billions spent on eGovernment. National administrations and large corporations control the current eDemocracy proposals on a local, state/provincial, national and international scale. The latter is promoting particular technologies, especially for online voting, but also evolving technologies that will better serve the needs of the citizens coming to government web sites.

Through the new technologies being developed, a non-linear world of time and distance is merging in people's minds, and the world is being seen in new dimensions not known before in our history. It is this potential that will drive the change in our society. It is not necessarily because there is a younger generation coming up who are integrated with the technology and have adapted it with ease. Rather, it is the potential of what these technologies can do that holds within the minds of so many the kernel of change. We have only began to realize the true dimension and scale of where democracy might go.

Thomas Riley is the the co-Founder, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Centre for Electronic Governance [http://www.electronicgov.net], a think-tank set up under a Commonwealth Secretariat programme in London. He is also the President of Riley Information Services [http://www.rileyis.com], a consultant and advisor specialising in national and international IT policy development, and a Visiting Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Glasgow. Throughout his twenty-eight years as an access, privacy and information technology professional, Mr Riley has written numerous articles and opinion pieces published around the world, organises national and international conferences on a wide range of information technology and policy issues, and produces specialised reports for public and private sector clients. For further information he can be contacted at Tom@Rileyis.com

Thomas Riley's independent opinion appears courtesy of Prospect - a recruitment consultancy committed to 'enabling better futures' and sourcing the people to drive eGovernment. For further information go to http://www.prospectmsl.com/ or email info@prospectmsl.com

"Urgent" e-voting security consultation launched

eGov monitor Weekly

The Office of the e-Envoy (OeE) has launched an urgent consultation on a new set of security concepts that will form the baseline for all future pilots and full-scale implementations of electronic voting in the UK.

Industry input is being sought on recommendations put forward by the Communications Electronics Security Group (CESG), the Government's national technical authority for information assurance, following a high-level review of e-voting systems and procedures that could be put in place to minimize the risks associated with their use.

The OeE is seeking the views of IT suppliers to inform the second phase of electoral modernization pilots, set to be announced in less than five weeks' time. The Office of Deputy Prime Minister will next month issue a prospectus to councils inviting them to participate in trials of e-voting in the May 2003 local government elections, and also publish an invitation to tender for potential suppliers. Early comments have, therefore, been invited relating to the practical arrangements of implementing pilot systems that reflect the CESG's analysis and recommendations. The deadline for responses has been set as 28 August, leaving interested parties - such as suppliers of infrastructure or services which are, or may become, relevant to e-voting election officials - with only two weeks to submit their comments. Responses will also feed into the Government's over-arching strategy for eDemocracy policy, which is subject to consultation until 31 October.

The move follows recent criticisms by the Electoral Commission of the "less than efficient" procurement process undertaken in last year's pilots, that resulted in what they reported as "timetable pressures" that in many cases, required councils and their IT partners to start developing their e-voting systems before receiving the official go-ahead.

The most significant of the 15 recommendations made by the CESG in their study is the adoption of a "key principle" which will be fundamental in the development of any successful, and secure, remote electronic voting system. The principle outlines the requirement for a trusted path between the voter's intention and what is recorded in the system - fulfilling the traditional role of the pencil, paper and ballot box. The CESG conclude that current security technologies are unable to meet the requirements implied by this key principle, and outline a technical approach using pre-encrypted ballots that could allow e-voting to be implemented for very large-scale surveys and elections.

The Nightmare Scenario Is Here - Computer Voting With No Paper Trail

Monday, August 5, 2002

CommonDreams.org

by Lynn Landes

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri has a dream....and political candidates and their supporters had better listen up unless they want to see all their hard work go down the tube because of voting machine failure or finagling.

Mercuri is a computer science professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, president of the consulting firm Notable Software, and one of the nation's foremost experts in the field of voting machine technology and security. Her testimony has been used in legal battles involving voting system failures, including the Bush-Gore election.

For the last 10 years she's dreamed of the day when voting machines can be relied upon to register and count every vote correctly; where man and machine, paper and process, come together to guarantee an almost fail-safe voting system. She's even given her dream a name, "The Mercuri Method for Voter-Verified Physical Ballots."Yes, she's a bit of a nerd and proud of it.

But instead of seeing her dream come true, Mercuri is living her worst nightmare. Scores of county election boards across the nation have rushed out and bought the latest high tech 'paperless' voting machines. And leading the herd off the cliff is Theresa LePore. That's right, the Queen of Chad, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County, Florida, who some say single handedly cost Al Gore the presidency, is back with another debacle. Her office is being sued by the former Republican mayor of Boca Raton, Emil Danciu, who claims that the city council election held last March should be re-run due to malfunctions in the new $14 million dollar computer voting machines LePore bought from Sequoia Voting Systems Inc..

Sound familiar? But wait. There's a new twist to this old tale. LePore is once again, and almost perversely, providing a much-needed service by demonstrating how bungled the job of electronic voting can get. The machines LePore purchased can't be audited through a paper trail. There are no ballots. Making matters worse, LePore signed an agreement with Sequoia to protect their "trade secrets," which effectively prohibits any party contesting an election from examining the machine or its programming. That's convenient for Sequoia and the winner, but alarming for critics who believe the voting process should not be based on a Titanic leap of faith.

Mercuri says that in order for an electronic voting system to have any integrity, five components must be present - a voter, a ballot, a computerized voting machine, a printer, and an optical scanner - and three basic steps must be taken. First, the voting machine registers a voter's selection both electronically and on a paper ballot. Second, the machine then displays the paper ballot behind clear glass or plastic so that the voter can review their selection, but not take the ballot home by mistake. If the voter's selection doesn't agree with the ballot or the voter makes a mistake, the voter can call a poll worker to void the ballot, and then re-vote. And third, the paper ballot is optically scanned (most likely at the county administration building), providing a second electronic tally. If anything goes wrong with either the voting machines or the optical scanner, the paper ballots can be hand-counted as a last resort or as part of an audit. And voila! We have a fully auditable voting system with checks and balances, review and redundancy.

This is an extremely important issue. Due to difficulties using voting equipment, 1.5 million presidential votes were not recorded in 2000, and up to 3.5 million votes weren't recorded in the last election cycle for the Senate and state governors, according to The CalTech/MIT Technology Report of July 2001.

The chief problem with paperless computer voting, according to Mercuri, is this, "Any programmer can write code that displays one thing on a screen, records something else, and prints yet another result. There is no known way to ensure that this is not happening inside of a voting system." And Mercuri points out, "No electronic voting system has been certified to even the lowest level of the U.S. government or international computer security standards..." The Federal Election Commission provides only voluntary standards, and even those don't ensure election "integrity," she says.

As for Internet voting...forget about it. "A secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers," says Bruce Schneier, founder of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.

This summer Congress has been working on H.R. 2275, which provides for the establishment of an election standards commission. Election standards would still be voluntary, but Mercuri believes that the technical standards, if developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will be effective. Unfortunately, the bill got tabled until the fall.

It's not too late to fix the problem for those counties that have already bought paperless computer voting machines, like my hometown of Philadelphia. Election officials can simply attach a printer to the computer and then feed the results into an optical scanner. A printer should cost about $20-50. Optical scanners that are hand-fed can cost $3,000 – 4,000 and scan 2,000 - 3000 ballots per hour. For populated counties automated units can cost $40,000 - $50,000 and scan 20,000 ballots per hour.

As it stands, the integrity of the voting process in the United States has already been damaged. Without a paper ballot and absent a voter's ability to check their selection, computer voting is an invitation to across the board malfunction and malfeasance. With the legitimacy of our representative democracy at stake, it's time to make Dr. Mercuri's dream come true.

Jeffco voters point fingers

But with new touch screens, they were supposed to

By Charley Able

Rocky Mountain News

August 14, 2002

Colorado -- Jefferson County voters entered the computer age Tuesday, using touch-screen voting for the first time in a major election.

Last spring, county commissioners agreed to spend about $6.5 million for 1,840 iVotronic units, providing one machine for every 250 active, registered voters. The machines were used in all of the county's precincts.

Faye Griffin, county clerk and recorder, said the new system was working well.

"It's going real well, almost too scary," Griffin said as the vote-counting progressed Tuesday. By 9:45 p.m., the county had posted vote totals for more than 89 percent of precincts.

"It is counting about 20 precincts in two minutes. It's not a large turnout, but it is a turnout," she said. "The only flaws we have had are some misunderstandings with election judges in opening and closing."

For years, Jefferson County's final voting results have lagged behind those of other counties by hours because of outdated punch-card voting. In the 1999 general election, the punch-card votes were not tallied until after 1 a.m.

In the November 2001 election, the county used a rented "connect the arrows" paper-ballot system that provided faster, more accurate results.

But when the time came to purchase a system, Griffin opted for the touch-screen system that was enlisted for Tuesday's primaries.

The new system records votes on three independent and redundant storage devices, providing backup to prevent loss or alterations of votes.

It is also capable of transmitting results from outlying locations, a feature that allowed polling-place results to be funneled to Griffin's office from the motor-vehicle branches throughout the county.

The motor-vehicle branches were chosen, in part, because they have phone lines capable of high-speed data transmission.

Florida ready to move past chad of 2000 election

08/13/2002

By Deborah Sharp

USA TODAY

DELRAY BEACH, Fla — The "butterfly ballot" threw him for a loop two years ago, but Edward Japalucci needed only moments to master the new touch-screen machine that many Florida voters will use in next month's primary.

It will take a lot longer for his hard feelings to fade over the 2000 presidential election, when voting mishaps made his county a national punch line and led ultimately to statewide voting changes.

"It wasn't very funny," says Japalucci, 73. "If you're a Democrat, it wasn't very funny at all."

On Sept. 10, the Florida primary will mark the first statewide election since the voting debacle of November 2000. Florida has made broad changes since then. The 30-year-old punch-card technology that was used is now banned. Voter education has increased. And recount rules are standardized.

Election supervisors have been busy demonstrating the touch-screen voting machines at malls, senior centers and small civic gatherings. The screens resemble bank ATMs.

At the Elks lodge here, Japalucci and 26 others turned out recently for a demonstration by Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore. There were only a few glitches.

"It's a computer. I know that scares a lot of people, especially older people," LePore says. She compared it to other touch-screens, from microwaves to video poker. "Don't be afraid of it."

But with the old punch-card technology, Florida put the outcome of the presidential election on hold through 36 days of recounts, court battles and protests. The U.S. Supreme Court finally settled the stalemate. Of 5.8 million ballots cast in Florida for the Republican and Democrat candidates, George W. Bush beat Al Gore by an official margin of 537 votes.

Florida bore the brunt of national scrutiny of voting methods. But the narrow outcome revealed voting system flaws nationwide. Some 101 million Americans voted in the presidential election.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the nation's voting technology after the 2000 election. They concluded that between 4 million and 6 million Americans were unable to vote, or their votes were uncounted:

* At least 1.5 million presidential votes were lost due to faulty equipment or confusing ballot design.

* Registration mix-ups accounted for 1.5 million to 3 million lost votes.

* Polling place foul-ups led to 1 million lost votes.

Most Americans were surprised to discover vast numbers of votes are routinely uncounted in a system hobbled by everything from voter error to flawed technology. If victory margins are wide, the spoiled votes rarely become an issue. But in a close race, the shortcomings are revealed.

Which is why a nation learned, through the Florida recounts, about the once-obscure chad. Chad — not "chads" — are tiny bits of paper that result after a voter makes selections on a punch-card ballot. Sometimes the chad does not fully separate from the ballot, those are called hanging, pregnant or dimpled chads.

Nearly every state filed election reform measures after Florida's fiasco: a staggering 3,561 bills. By early July, only 440 provisions had passed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

A handful of states, besides Florida, made major changes, including Georgia, Maryland and California.

"Obviously, some momentum has been lost. Congress hasn't produced a bill in almost two years. It's an absolute outrage," says Doug Lewis, of the non-profit Election Center. The center represents about 6,800 election supervisors in counties and other jurisdictions nationwide.

The House has passed a bill to provide up to $2.65 billion over three years to set minimum standards for national elections that would include modernizing voting equipment, improving voter education and training election administrators and poll workers. The effort has hit a snag in the Senate, however, over the insistence of Republicans that first-time voters be required to show photo ID or other documentation to vote.

In Palm Beach County, LePore has held more than 500 demonstrations with the county's $14.4 million voting machines. Fifteen of Florida's 67 counties purchased touch-screen machines. The other counties opted to use optical scan ballots, in which voters pencil in ovals next to a candidate's name, as with standardized school tests.

With touch screens, voters select a candidate by touching a circle next to the person's name. The technology allows voters to review their selections. It also includes some fail-safe measures. For example, it won't allow voters to mistakenly mark more than one candidate in a single race or skip marking a particular race. Such "over-votes" or "under-votes" were a problem in 2000.

The equipment had a rocky debut in Palm Beach County this winter. Problems in two municipal elections led losing candidates to file lawsuits and demand recounts. One of the suits has been dropped.

LePore says touch-screen problems were minimal. This year, some 65,000 people voted in 20 municipal elections, she says, and about twice that number have tried the new technology at demonstrations. The county has 700,000 registered voters.

"The equipment has worked just fine," says LePore, 47, who is serving a second term.

LePore was pilloried in 2000 for the design of the butterfly ballot. It listed the candidates on facing pages instead of down one page. She did it to make the ballot easier for seniors to read, but many voters were confused about which hole to punch for their candidate.

She says she doesn't like to relive those days after the 2000 election, when she received death threats and had to have a security detail.

But memories of that time still divide county voters. Many Democrats say victory was stolen from Gore, while many Republicans say a rightful Bush win was unfairly tainted by protests and recounts.

Bud Harvey, 79, an Elks member and a Republican, praised the new technology after his tryout: "The Republicans are going to win again. This time, without any problems."

UK Electoral Commission Reports – 2002 eVoting Pilots

The UK Electoral Commission has released their final report on the May 2002 e-voting pilots. Overall, it was considered a success and they want to continue with pilots with a complete e-voting rollout after 2006.

Electoral Commission: Modernizing Elections in the UK, A Strategic Evaluation of the E-voting Pilots

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/publications_pdfs/pilot_reports/Modernising_elections.pdf

Electoral Commission's executive summary and next steps

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/publications_pdfs/pilot_reports/exec_sum_mod_elections.pdf

Scroll down the website, for individual technical reports written by PWC.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/publications.htm#anchor1

The disability organization, SCOPE completed a report on the Pros and cons of Internet voting.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/publications_pdfs/pilot_reports/scope_pollsapt.pdf

Suwanee Voters First In State To Use Electronic Voting Twice

August 13 , 2002

Suwanee.com

When City of Suwanee residents vote in next week's special City Council election, they will be the only voters in Georgia using electronic voting equipment and the first voters in the state to use electronic voting twice. The state will use electronic voting beginning with this November's elections.

The City was one of 13 communities statewide to participate in the Secretary of State's electronic voting pilot program last November when residents approved by a wide margin a referendum that allowed the City to obtain $17.7 million in general obligation bonds to acquire and preserve land for open space, greenspace, neighborhood parks, interconnected greenways and trails, and passive recreation areas.

Voters last fall seemed generally pleased with electronic voting. "It was great," said Suwanee resident Darlene Worsham of her experience. "Fast and easy."

Suwanee residents will cast their ballots next week using one of eight electronic voting machines that will be available from 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. at Suwanee City Hall, 373 Highway 23. Voters will elect a City Councilmember to complete the term of Andrew Krieman, who has moved out of state; the term expires December 31, 2005. Candidates for the City Council seat are Tucker Balch, Jace Brooks, Jim Lenahan, and Earl Mitchell.

Poll workers will be available to assist voters who have questions about using the electronic equipment, which is being provided by VoteHere, an electronic and online voting systems company based in Bellevue, Washington.

Suwanee voters will need to go to their regular county precincts as well in order to participate in the August 20 primary election.

Absentee voting for Suwanee's City Council seat is available through August 19. Requests for absentee ballots must be made in writing or in person at City Hall. For more information about the City's August 20th special election, contact Elvira Rogers at 770/945-8996.

District of Columbia to Provide Touch Screen in Every Precinct Under Settlement with Disabled Voters

By Aron Goetzl

electionline.org

In a landmark settlement that could have ramifications for other jurisdictions that use optical-scan machines, disability rights advocates announced this morning that the District of Columbia will purchase at least one accessible touch-screen system for every city polling place in time for the 2004 primary.

“We are utterly thrilled to resolve this case,” said Linda Royster, executive director of the Disability Rights Council of Greater Washington. “[Disabled voters] have been excluded from voting for years by architectural barriers and the way voting took place. Now they will have accessible voting machines.”

Sequoia Voting Systems will provide the touch-screens to the city at a cost of about $1 million, Royster said. She noted the company, which manufactures the District’s optical-scan systems, was a natural choice to provide touch screens.

A spokesperson for D.C. government was unavailable for comment today. The city did not send a representative to this morning’s press conference.

Advocates say the District will now become the largest metropolitan area to provide such equipment to voters with disabilities. The agreement arose from a lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the Disability Rights Council of Greater Washington and five disabled voters calling for the D.C. government to buy technology that enables disabled voters to cast a secret ballot.

The decision comes just one year after the city purchased a $1 million optical-scan voting system in 2001 to replace its punch-card machines that had been used since 1979 and months after the election officials completed a city-wide education program to train voters on the new machines. The District’s Sept. 10 primary marks their first use.

Disability advocates protested the upgrade to optical-scan equipment because voters who are blind or cannot use their hands are unable to cast a ballot without assistance. The lawsuit argued that D.C. election officials refused to acquire touch-screen machines, which are accessible to disabled voters.

“D.C. has finally agreed to fulfill its legal and moral obligation,” said Marc Fiedler, chairman of the Disability Rights Council board. “This is a victory for the entire city which stands to benefit from increased participation of disabled voters.”

If disability rights advocates have their way, they could be celebrating similar victories against other optical-scan jurisdictions in the near future. The groups filed a similar suit against Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, Fla., and promise to take the fight to more places, given the rush to acquire new systems post-Florida 2000. According to Election Data Services, approximately 40 percent of the nation’s voting jurisdictions used optical-scan machines in 2001.

“This is a major signal to the hundreds of jurisdictions across the country purchasing new optical-scan systems,” said Jim Dickson, the AAPD’s vice president for government affairs. “That will not be allowed.”

Added Royster, “I see optical scan going right out the window. It is simply not legal to purchase a new voting system and not make that accessible to people with disabilities.”

But Doug Lewis, head of the Election Center and a member of electionline.org’s Advisory Board, doubted whether the District’s settlement would have as far-reaching impact on the nation’s election system as advocates for the disabled predict. He cited ongoing Congressional negotiations on a major election overhaul bill that could result in what these disability rights groups want – an accessible voting machine in every precinct in the country.

“If federal legislation passes and they fund the direct recording electronic machines, then that takes care of the problem,” Lewis said today from the Election Center’s summer conference in San Antonio. “The settlement sounds like it is mirroring federal legislation.”

Dickson said he hopes today’s announcement will spur Congress to finalize a bill with the accessible-machine provision. The District could be reimbursed for purchasing these new touch-screen machines under the current language in the Senate version of election reform, he said.

“It is time for them to buckle down to business,” he said.

Although the new machines will not be ready for use in the city’s 2002 elections, as the suit originally called for, they will be on display for educational purposes in half of all precincts in the September primary and the other half in the November general election. Advocates said today that the city is seeking volunteers to demonstrate how to use the touch-screens during both elections.

Mercuri article on computer voting

SecurePoll Electronic Voting Update

What’s Inside