By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX - State senators voted Thursday to block the state from using touch-screen
voting machines unless they also produce a printed record.
The state must ensure that votes cast by Arizonans are accurately recorded,
said Sen. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Tucson. And that means being able to do a recount.
But no paper record leaves nothing to recount - meaning the only way to review
the tally is to query the machine that may or may not have recorded the votes
accurately.
The root of the concern is that a touch-screen machine simply tallies the votes
in its internal memory. And Giffords said there is evidence the electronic machines
have problems.
In fact, on Thursday California's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel unanimously
recommended that state ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen machines it has that
were made by Diebold Election Systems.
Members said the machines malfunctioned during last month's California primary.
Giffords said there are many things that can go wrong, such as glitches in the
programming, information that is erased or problems with the computer's memory.
"Things happen electronically, that's a fact of life," she said. "But
that's why we need paper documentation, something tangible that we can go back
to in the case of a power outage or in the case of memory failure, to recount."
Sen. Marilyn Jarrett, R-Mesa, agreed there should be some sort of paper trail.
"But we do not have the technology at this point to do it," Jarrett
said she was told by Secretary of State Jan Brewer. She said Brewer promised
her that once such machines are available the state will have them.
Giffords disagreed, saying such machines exist.
At the moment the argument is largely academic: The only touch-screen machines
now in Arizona have been specially purchased for the visually impaired, because
federal law requires such a system for the 2006 election.
All other voters will be using optical scanning equipment, where someone marks
a ballot with a pen or pencil and the paper then is fed through a machine that
tallies the votes. The paper is preserved if there is a need for a recount.
However, Giffords is concerned because other states are moving to touch-screen
machines for all voters.
Arizona has no such plans, said Kevin Tyne, deputy director of state.
Members of the Campaign for Verifiable Voting cited a report done by researchers
at Johns Hopkins University which found "significant security flaws"
in the voting system used by Diebold Election Systems, the company that manufactures
touch-screen voting machines.
Diebold disagreed with the recommendation, said its marketing director, Mark
Radke. The company will quickly write a report outlining its objections.