New voting machines will facilitate voting for the visually impaired

William Schultz has to replace a county's worth of outdated punch-card voting machines, but he's unsure how to proceed.

The El Dorado County registrar of voters faces a Jan. 1 federal deadline to retool more than 110 polling places. Yet Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has not certified some of the controversial machines Schultz plans to buy from Diebold Elections Systems.

"We can't do anything until the system is certified," Schultz said. "We're just waiting to see what the secretary of state is going to do, and we're rapidly running out of time."

McPherson's staff earlier this month recommended that the Diebold TSx machines be conditionally certified, but critics raised security and accessibility concerns last week at a public hearing in Sacramento.

McPherson is still reviewing public comments and plans to allow a Finnish expert to try to hack into the Diebold system soon, said Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a secretary of state spokeswoman.

McPherson has given no indication as to when he will decide on certification.

Electronic voting critics say the federal Help America Vote Act deadline requiring local officials to replace outdated and inaccessible voting machines should be extended. They suggest that electronic voting machines approved by federal officials are flawed.

And they insist that deadline fears raised by county registrars should not trump the need for secure elections.

"The next election is not until June, so the real goal should be to have it conducted with equipment that meets the standards of California and federal law," said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey. "There is no requirement that every polling place be filled with electronic voting equipment. The requirement is to make the polls accessible to disabled voters and there's more than one way to do that."

County registrars are uncertain what will happen if they do not have new voting machines in place by the Jan. 1 deadline. They say they could face lawsuits or lose federal funding.

Another electronic voting machine made by Sequoia Voting Systems is certified, but not for the June primary ballot.

A third type, an optical-scan machine used in Sacramento County, meets next year's guidelines.
"It's a legal deadline, but as for what's going to happen, I don't have a crystal ball," said Conny McCormack, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and the Los Angeles County registrar. "No counties want or need to be in this position of noncompliance, and we have been forced into this position."

Fifteen county registrars, including McCormack and Schultz, signed a letter this month urging McPherson to certify Diebold's machine as soon as possible. McCormack said registrars want the state to test and certify a variety of machines for use.

U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said federal officials could bring a civil action against any local government that does not comply with the HAVA standards. That could come in the form of an injunction that asks a county to come into compliance with the law, she said.

Sacramento County has installed a state-certified optical-scan system to comply with the Jan. 1 federal deadline. In optical-scan systems, voters fill out a ballot by circling in bubbles similar to those used on standardized tests.

Voters with disabilities can select choices on a computer that prints out a ballot on paper. In both cases, voters ultimately feed their paper ballots into a scanner.

Other counties, such as San Joaquin, have opted for touch-screen electronic voting. San Joaquin County has 1,625 Diebold TSx machines in storage, awaiting certification from McPherson.
Touch-screen machines allow voters to use a computer that internally records their selections. Under state law, all electronic-voting machines next year must provide a printout of a voter's selections for purposes of verification.

Schultz wants to purchase the Diebold touch-screen machine for visually impaired voters and those with disabilities to comply with federal guidelines - part of a plan El Dorado County supervisors approved in May.

Voters with disabilities have backed electronic voting as the best way to allow them to vote independently. Some suggest that the optical-scan system provides less privacy because voters may require help to transfer a ballot from a printer to a scanner.

But advocates last week criticized the Diebold electronic voting machine for a lack of accessibility.
Dan Kysor of California Council of the Blind said the Diebold machines are incapable of reading printed text to visually impaired voters who want to verify their selections. While sighted voters can read the paper trail, he said, visually impaired voters don't have the same protection.

Kysor said that blind and visually impaired voters in the past have sought help from a sighted person. But he believes HAVA allows all voters to vote independently with the same rights.
Teresa Favuzzi, executive director of California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, also criticized the Diebold machine for lacking a sip-and-puff mechanism for people who have impaired dexterity. She added that it is not portable enough for use in curbside voting at polling places that are inaccessible.

Kim Alexander of the California Voting Foundation said legitimate concerns by voters with disabilities could delay certification of the Diebold system because the HAVA standards are meant to make voting systems accessible.

McPherson rejected Diebold certification this summer when a volume test of 96 TSx machines in San Joaquin County resulted in screen freezes and paper jams. A subsequent test this fall in San Diego had few problems - leading to recommended certification by secretary of state staff.

But electronic voting critics last week said all machines - Diebold's included - are vulnerable to computer hackers. Jim March, an electronic voting investigator with nonprofit Black Box Voting, said that an errant elections official or company official could tamper with results.
Such concerns prompted McPherson to allow for a hacking test in the near future.
Diebold spokesman David Bear denied that the voting machines could be hacked.