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Tom Green voting equipment problem
[The following e-mail was received In response to a request from CAMBER. Permission to publish was granted by the author.]
From:
Dennis McKerley [ADDRESS REMOVED]
Mr. Kolwicz,
I will try to explain to you some of our problems. Unfortunately the news media in its normal fashion made the problems sound much worse. The reporter that worked the stories here is the type that if you tell him the sun came up in the east this morning, he tries to write a story about a total solar eclipse.
We use HART InterCivic eSlate and eScan. The problems that drew national attention were not so much the equipment, but the lack of training of local workers by HART. Like many counties throughout the nation, we did have problems on election day with the codes that start the machines, and then again at poll closing we had problems with codes to close the machines. During the first day of early voting three eSlate machines quit working but were quickly replaced. Hart did make repairs to the machines. On election day we had 3 eScan machines at 3 different polling places quit working. We believe the problem at those places may have been mishandling of the equipment when being set up. But, the plus for eScan is that the voter can still mark the paper ballot and place it in the emergency shute so it can be scanned later even in a power failure. (Another problem that we had in early voting).
One of our local candidates lost a bid for the run-off position in a County Court at Law position by 12 votes and asked for a hand recount of the ballots. The first problem that we encountered was the print-out of the "picture" of the voted ballots from the eSlate machines. The pages were double column, front and back, with the votes of both parties present on the sheet and 3 to 4 ballots on each sheet. "Callers" during the recount had to go down each column on the front and back of each sheet and search for the office in question. Calls were placed to HART concerning the print-out and we were informed that was the only way the ballots could be printed. We later found that information to be false. We then found that lack of training of local workers caused a failure to print all the ballots that were needed for the re-count. At the advice of the Secretary of State's office we put the re-count in "suspension" until HART could correct the problems we were encountering. After several calls by the election administrator, HART sent a representative to us from Omaha Nebraska that was able to explain and recover the numbers we were missing. The votes were there, retrieved, and printed for the second and final attempt at the re-count.
Unfortunately, HAVA pressed these new systems on election workers without the companies and/or election workers having adequate time to test the new processes and adjust to possible errors. Our problems were numerous and had many causes. There was some equipment failure, election worker errors, lack of training, county chairman errors, administrative errors, and voter errors.
I strongly support the eScan (paper ballot trail) system especially for recount purposes. Even if there is a power failure, equipment failure, or even a "glitch", there is an accountable paper trail and the election process can continue during early voting or election day. (eScan is also necessary for mail in ballots). After reading several articles from around the nation, and visiting with other chairmen and administrators, it is evident that no system is perfect and I do feel that Tom Green County did select the best of the forced evils. I am adding some addresses that you may want to visit on the web.
Just a side note. During our early voting period the elections office was "pushing" the use of eSlate machines, but the ratio was 60 % (eSlate) to 40% (eScan). Even more interesting was the younger voters used eScan because they felt eSlate was "too slow".
I am sure I have made things as clear as "mud". This is a new type of mud slinging in politics.
Dennis McKerley
www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-27-voting-machines_x.htm www.panews.com/articles/2006/03/28/news/4county.txt
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