COMEBACK: Six counties will use the system that thrust chads, one shown here, into the national spotlight.
Posted on 09/23/2003 11:45:18 AM PDT by bedolido
To: California
From: Florida
Re: Punch card voting machines.
Here in Florida, where ''punch card'' means ''worldwide humiliation'' and chad is a bad word, elections experts have been watching California's recall election with great, um, interest.
There's a lot to watch.
On Monday, after a week of legal limbo, a panel of 11 federal judges heard arguments to decide whether the election should be held Oct. 7 or be postponed as much as five months.
If the election goes ahead in October, voters in six counties, including Los Angeles, will use the infamous punch card voting machines to choose the governor of the most populous state in the nation.
And to confound voters a little bit more, the enormous slate of candidates -- 135 in all -- won't even be listed in alphabetical order.
''Those poor people in California,'' lamented one Florida elections supervisor.
But in California's hour of need, Florida -- now blissfully chad-free -- is more than a little qualified to offer advice. Here then are a few highly technical tips culled from those who study this wonderfully imperfect system we call voting, bedrock of democracy.
Clean out the voting machines now and then.
Push down, hard, when selecting a candidate.
After voting, remove all chads -- hanging, swinging, dangling or otherwise.
Then pray.
'I jokingly tell folks that on Election Day I say a little prayer. `Lord, I don't care who wins -- just let 'em win big,' '' said Kurt Browning, elections supervisor of Pasco County where they successfully used punch cards from 1977 to 2001.
LANDSLIDE HOPES
A landslide means no recount. And no recount would go a long way toward a trouble-free election. Florida's problems, Browning said, started with the incredibly narrow margin of victory for George W. Bush.
''It was like all the stars aligned and there was nothing we could have done -- 537 votes out of how many millions cast?'' Browning said. ``Punch cards became the whipping boy.''
Like Florida, California is phasing out its punch-card voting machines. By the statewide primary in March, the last six counties using punch cards, including Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego, will convert to electronic-voting machines. The six counties represent 40 percent of the state's registered voters.
But the recall election is forcing the issue. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups argue that the use of punch-card ballots in some counties and not others could cause up to 40,000 votes to go uncounted.
FLORIDA FIASCO
In Florida, more than 170,000 ballots went uncounted in the 2000 presidential election. Error rates in counties that were predominantly black and used punch-card machines ran as high as 11 percent, according to a Miami Herald study after the election.
Courts. Lawsuits. A major election in the balance. And punch-card voting machines once again at the center of the storm.
Why then do elections experts like Jane Carroll, who retired as Broward County's elections supervisor in 2001, defend the machines?
''If the voter follows the directions, the punch cards are very, very accurate,'' she said. ``They got a really bad rap in that election. People never have trusted them after that.''
Carroll and others say that poll worker education, voter education, adequate staffing at the polls, maintenance of the machines and ballot layout all can influence the outcome of an election, regardless of the type of voting machine.
But no one stands more firmly behind the machines than John Ahmann, designer of the vote-punch device at the center of the debate.
''The machines were a scapegoat,'' Ahmann, a rancher, said from his California home. ``Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Utah -- lots of states still use the machines. This is not their swan song.''
Hanging chads are a problem, he admits. But California law includes a standard for what constitutes a vote -- something Florida lacked during the presidential elections.
Jill Lavine, Sacramento County registrar, (the California equivalent to a county elections supervisor) said all the counties use the same procedures, approved by the secretary of state. ``We've used punch cards for 32 years and no, we don't have a problem with them.''
CLEAN MACHINES
The counties also clean their machines after every election, she said -- no chad buildup. And elections inspectors, two at a time, examine each ballot before it is counted to remove any loose or hanging chads, she said.
''We've done that ever since we've used the machines and our recounts always come out the same,'' she said.
EDUCATING VOTERS
Los Angeles County also launched a voter-education campaign in 2001 called ''Got Chad?'' after the popular milk ad campaign. It proved so successful that some elections officials found the reverse problem in subsequent elections: Voters were punching the ballot so hard they were breaking the stylus, the tool used to punch holes in the ballot.
But what amount of education could prepare anyone for an election like this?
The candidates include everyone from adult-film star Mary Carey to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The ballot that will run for pages and pages, just to list all 135 candidates. And the list won't even be alphabetized (it's a fairness issue.)
''I think one of your biggest problems is that voters will get discouraged,'' said University of Miami professor and election expert Terence Anderson. ``It would have to be this big book of pages you'd have to flip over and search for the person you want to vote for.''
And then there's the question of overvotes. Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, a political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., said he thinks voters might punch more than one hole on the ballot simply from confusion over so many names.
Electronic voting machines -- though not perfect, either -- have safeguards to prevent overvotes, he noted, but punch card ballots don't.
''You have to wonder if they'll take the lessons of Florida and put more warnings on the ballot to only vote for one person,'' he said. ``People have an inevitable way of screwing up. And California people may be wackier than Florida people.''
Theresa LePore, elections supervisor for Palm Beach County and designer of the ''butterfly ballot'' that caused so much confusion, said voter education offers the best hope California's election, whenever it might be.
''You can tell them,'' she said, ``we sure wish them luck out there.''
COMEBACK: Six counties will use the system that thrust chads, one shown here, into the national spotlight.
And then choose a candidate.
Total of 2 holes.
It's the ACLU that is a bunch of dumb jerks!
Ain't gonna work if the power goes out.
California has no such problem because the standard (3 corners out of 4 must be disconnected) already exists.
Punchcard voting is the simplest, accurate way to vote. It also allows a voter to vote however he likes, including overvoting or undervoting when he doesn't like any candidates running for a particular office. Scantron-type fill-in-the-bubble ballots are pretty good, too, but it's easier to make a mistake such as circling the bubble, writing a check or an "X," or not completely filling in the bubble. Anything not on paper may disenfranchise some old people or whoever is on the other side of the "digital divide" who are intimidated by computers, and those systems are perhaps more vulnerable to power outages and computer hackers.
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