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Kern County to expand use of electronic voting machines

BY JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer
e-mail:jburger@bakersfield.com | Friday, May 23 2008 11:46 AM

Last Updated: Friday, May 23 2008 6:34 PM

When you cast your vote on June 3, you may be voting for something you didn’t expect.

Paper ballot or plastic data card?

In October, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen restricted the use of several models of electronic voting booths, including AccuVote-TSx touch-screen machines owned by Kern County, after studies showed votes made on the machines could be tampered with.

The studies showed the AccuVote machines, manufactured by Diebold (a company now called Premier Election Solutions), are vulnerable to viruses that can be spread between machines.

Bowen’s edict still stands but Kern County Auditor Controller Ann Barnett plans to use a loophole to put large numbers of the machines back to work next month.

She’s doing it despite the fact every electronic ballot will have to be recounted by hand after the election — costing the county an extra $12,000.

“People have a right to use (a) touch screen,” Barnett said.

The loophole Barnett’s using stems from Bowen letting counties use one electronic machine per voting precinct to comply with handicapped-access requirements. In February, each Kern County polling place had two electronic voting booths.

But since most Kern County polling places serve between two and six precincts, Barnett said she is packing polling places with one machine per precinct in June.

The polling site serves six precincts?

There will be six touch-screen machines there.

“We have some (polling places) as large as 12 (precincts),” Barnett said.

And anyone, not just the handicapped, can use them.

“Under current law this would be OK,” said Nicole Winger, a spokesperson for Bowen. “There is no limit under current law to the number of precincts a county can consolidate into one polling place.”

But she noted that proposed legislation, AB 2633, would ban counties from consolidating more than six precincts in one place.

Elections officials across California have generally opposed Bowen’s restrictions on controversial electronic voting machines.

“I think the machines have proven themselves to be more accurate than paper,” said Kern elections chief Sandy Brockman. “I think (Bowen) knows it. I think her concerns were the hacking concerns.”

So are Brockman and Barnett rebelling against Bowen’s October 2007 restrictions on Kern County’s touch-screen machines?

“No,” Brockman said. “I think we’re trying to cater to our voters.”

She said voters have informally told elections workers and other officials they want to use touch screens.

Voters may test the accuracy of that statement when they pick between paper and electronic ballots in June.

Sam Waldron, who cast his vote Thursday on paper ballots at Kern County Elections, said he didn’t much care whether he punched a chad, filled a circle or touched a screen.

He just wants elections officials to “keep a watchdog test to make sure everything is honorable,” he said.

Barnett said Kern County must, legally, print enough paper ballots for every voter. Kern’s price tag for paper ballots is more than $350,000, Barnett said.

And, under Bowen’s provisional re-certification of Kern’s AccuVote machines, Brockman’s staff will have to hand-count every single vote cast on a touch-screen machine.

Those votes will be counted in the days following June’s election.

“It doesn’t slow down election night. It does do something to the canvassing process afterward,” Brockman said. “I’ll just put more staff and more people on it.”

She estimates it will cost the county an extra $12,000 to hire temporary workers and administrative staff to do the extra counting of touch-screen ballots.

Brockman said the extra effort is “burdensome” but worth the effort.

“If this is what it takes to get the people’s faith in the electronic machines back, (Bowen’s) faith, then I’m willing to do it,” she said.