Tucson, Arizona  Sunday, 4 March 2001
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/10304N2FixingElectionscop.html

By Robert Tanner
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

If you're a pauper, Delaware's constitution barred you from voting (not that anyone enforced it). The deceased somehow continued to cast votes, this time in Indiana and Wisconsin. New Mexico misplaced ballots, machines broke down in New York, South Carolina couldn't recount one race because of bad ballot design, and Missouri poll lines grew so long people just went home.

Florida certainly wasn't alone.

"The nice thing about disasters," says Doug Lewis, a voting expert who trains election officials, "is maybe they give you an opportunity to do something you should've done a long time ago."

Except that while a great many ideas are pouring forth in the nation's legislatures and in Congress about how to fix the election problems of 2000, no one seems ready to actually do anything.

No surprise, really, what with 7,959 lawmakers, 192,419 voting precincts and 700,000 voting machines being taken into account.

Mix in election-reform bills growing by the hundreds and a price tag reaching into the billions of dollars and it's understandable why a solution to the problems facing the nation's election systems isn't expected anytime soon - or even a consensus on what that solution might look like.

So far, at least half the states have set up studies to see what needs fixing and how.

The big rush is for new voting equipment, though money is an unanswered question. In an Associated Press survey of all 50 states, would-be reformers are eyeing everything from paltry pay for Election Day workers to potential political bias by election officials to uniform closing time at the polls.

Punch cards out of favor

A good chunk of the country appears to be sick of punch cards. At least 11 states are considering legislation to make them a thing of the past.

"It's time this state moved into the 21st century," says Arizona state Sen. Ruth Solomon, supporting a $3.4 million plan to replace punch-card machines in the 10 rural Arizona counties that still use them.

Nationally, that step alone would be a big change, with roughly 30 percent of the nation's voters - 47.7 million people in 1998 - casting ballots with one of several versions of the punch cards, including Florida's now notorious Votomatic.

That's the easy part.

What might take its place is a bit more difficult.

Georgia's secretary of state wants a statewide voting system with electronic touch-screen machines. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's advisers want a statewide system, too, but they tend toward optical scan equipment at a fraction of the cost.

So far, equipment upgrades are the most common answer offered to the debacle of Election 2000, with all but a few states considering them.

Many lawmakers and officials are looking to Congress for financial help, though partisan sniping has House Democrats and Republicans at odds.

The cost nationwide could reach $6.5 billion, depending on the system.

But local election officials, though glad to get money for improvements long neglected in state and county budgets, are cautious about federal strings tied to the money. They don't want to give Washington too much say.

States responsible for elections

"The U.S. Constitution gives states the rights to do elections," says Lewis, who runs the Election Center, a Houston-based organization of election officials. "In practice, it always went to locals."

The National Association of Secretaries of State pointedly shied away from endorsing any uniform national standard last month when it endorsed post-election recommendations.

Then there's the choice of machines.

Many voting jurisdictions still use century-old voting lever systems, with their manufacturers long out of business. Others have gone on to optical scan equipment, where voters, pen in hand, fill in circles as in standardized school tests. And a small percentage have begun to use electronic touch-screen voting similar to ATMs.

In some rural areas, voters use paper ballots. Internet voting is still mostly talk, except for a few pilot projects.

All the pressure to find a solution has created a potentially huge market. A number of new companies are jumping into what has been a backwater industry, with big names like Microsoft, Dell and Unisys.

"The industry is prepared to ramp up quite quickly," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, dismissing worries that the manufacturers could be overwhelmed if the states all move at once.

To ensure that the faults of Election 2000 aren't repeated, states must go back to basics.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended the Florida recount raised fundamental questions of law for at least half the states, where there are no specifics on how to oversee recounts in disputed elections.

In many, the standard for recounts simply requires a "clear indication of voter intent," with no further instruction. The high court decided that allowed too much variation between Florida counties to guarantee equal protection.

And the partisan cries of bias as each new disputed ballot was raised to the light by a weary Florida official are sending lawmakers back to define votes in their states, so that there will be no uncertainty if a hanging chad is a vote or not.

Definitions, however, will vary depending on the voting system.

Perception of fairness essential

"You simply can't have the perception that there isn't fairness," says Deborah Phillips, president of the watchdog group Voting Integrity Project. "That's true of football, it's true of elections."

So far, at least seven states are moving to formally define standards for recounts or how to determine a disputed vote.

Equipment upgrades and direct responses to Florida aside, anything and everything to do with elections is getting attention somewhere this year.

Such as the Electoral College, with measures in at least 15 states that would scrap the winner-take-all system for one that divides electoral votes by congressional district. Measures in another half-dozen states seek to bind electors so they can't throw an election. (One elector - in the Al Gore category - broke her vow this year.)

Or poll workers, training and voter education. There are promises of money and new ideas. A California measure would allow state employees to be diverted to the polls on Election Day; Oregon wants to teach voter education in high school.

Though probably the most mundane, observers say that better training, salaries and maintenance would have averted most of the disaster.

"Here is the bottom line: States have been niggardly about providing resources to local officials about all aspects of voting - whether it's machines, training or voter education," says Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania and a former election official.
© Arizona Daily Star