Touch-screen generates more doubts

Opinion surveys say people will head to the polls this year in search of change. They’re not talking about voting machines, but the gadgets used to elect our leaders have been in constant flux for nearly a decade, and more changes are on the way.

After the hanging chad debacle of 2000, punch card and lever systems were discarded for touch-screen computers. Now questions about the security of those devices has led many states to switch to optical scanners, which tabulate paper ballots voters fill out with a pen.

Virginia law prohibits local registrars from buying touch-screens, but they may use devices purchased before the ban went into effect last summer. Touch-screens are the dominant method of voting in South Hampton Roads. Norfolk bought its machines in 2002, and Virginia Beach followed in 2006.

“We’re happy with our machines,” said Beach Registrar Pat Harrington. “The voters now love them.”

The computers could last 15 to 20 years, although it’s unclear how long parts will be available for machines now considered by many states to be obsolete.

Florida began purging 25,000 electronic voting machines last year, forcing local governments to sell $5,000 computers for a few dollars apiece to recycling centers. California, Alaska, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico are also phasing out their machines.

Ohio is suing the former Diebold Election Systems, which also made machines used in Norfolk and the Beach. The company admitted last month that a software error can cause votes to be dropped and warned registrars to double-check the computers’ memory cards.

Several studies by scientific researchers have concluded touch-screen machines are too vulnerable to security failure. In fairness, those studies also acknowledge that all voting systems can malfunction and that their human operators are flawed beyond all hope of repair. But the computers present a new level of anxiety because they are highly complex and a tech-savvy criminal could do more damage than he could with a handful of punched ballots.

Public concern has been muted, in part because the people sounding the alarm are either computer whizzes who can’t explain the problem in English or hyperpartisan conspiracy theorists with little credibility.

Robert Guess, a computer security professor at Tidewater Community College, counts himself in the first group. Guess says the federal government is to blame for the slapstick reaction to the 2000 election. The government doled out $1.2 billion for new computerized voting machines between 2003 and 2007. Vendors rushed new equipment to market without adequate testing and with no national security standards in place. As localities scramble to buy the next generation of voting machines, he’s worried that history will repeat itself.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report this month criticized federal election officials for their failure to develop proper procedures for certifying new voting equipment.

Guess believes optical scanners are the best solution because the ballots are preserved. He said voters using touch-screens should be on the alert for signs of a glitch and notify local election officials.

“It’s the uncertainty that will eat away at the American electorate,” Guess said. “If people perceive that their votes don’t count, they’ll stop caring.”

Christina Nuckols is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

Reach her at (804) 697-1562 or christina.nuckols@pilotonline.com.