Touch Screens? Vote Yes or No

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Touch Screens? Vote Yes or No

With New Congress, Expect New Laws On Electronic Balloting
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
November 30, 2006; Page A4

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With 2008 on the horizon, the House seems likely to quickly pass a long-stalled bill that would tighten the security of touch-screen voting. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who will head the rules committee in the new Democratic-controlled Senate, has announced hearings on an identical measure. That legislation would require that touch screens provide a paper record of each ballot and a random audit of a fraction of those records to verify that votes are being counted correctly. Seventeen states already use paper trails, and a dozen require random audits. But some of this month's closest elections -- including for House seats in Florida, Pennsylvania and Indiana -- were in states that don't use either.

Both Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Rush Holt, the New Jersey Democrat who was author of the House bill, also would require voting-machine makers to disclose to a government commission the software code that records the ballots. Voting-machine vendors say the software is proprietary, and they already submit it to private labs for testing. That has fanned suspicion among election activists and some technology experts, who want broader access to the software to test for security holes that they claim could leave it susceptible to hackers.

State legislatures are likely to wade into the voting-equipment debate when they convene in January. Some states, including Maryland and Colorado, are having second thoughts about their touch screens. Commissioners in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, yesterday said they are considering getting rid of their touch screens. Sarasota County, Fla., voters passed a referendum this month requiring the county to dump its touch screens and revert to paper ballots. That vote came in the same election where touch-screen problems may have affected the outcome of a congressional race. And Georgia and Utah have funded research labs at their state universities to monitor voting-equipment standards and security -- areas where the federal government has been slow to act.

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About 36% of jurisdictions chose touch screens, which prompt a voter through an on-screen ballot, like an ATM. David Magelby, a Brigham Young University professor who ran exit polls on voter attitudes toward touch screens, says voters trust the equipment, but "it's a fragile trust." Because the machines weren't an issue in most of this year's close elections, many reports of touch-screen glitches attracted little attention.

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Meanwhile, Congress is likely to go way beyond voting machines in debating changes in election procedures. Both the House and Senate are likely to consider rules that would allow each party to have poll watchers in voting places and that would prohibit state election chiefs from serving on political campaign committees. The latter rule, if in force in 2000, would have precluded Katherine Harris from simultaneously overseeing the Florida election recount and serving on President Bush's campaign committee. Still smarting from close losses in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the Democratic-controlled Congress also may push for changes in voter-registration and voter-ID laws. As it is, states set their own identification requirements, and this year, four passed laws requiring voters to present a photo ID. Different state or federal courts blocked those laws in Georgia and Missouri but let them stand in Arizona and Indiana.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116485239519536502.html (subscription)

[question everything]

1. "prohibit state election chiefs from serving on political campaign committees

I like that. No more Kathrine Harris determining the outcome of elections.