Problems with touchscreen machines slow vote count

By MATT VOLZ / The Associated Press / August 23, 2006
Go to original.

Problems with Alaska’s new touchscreen voting machines slowed election returns Tuesday and caused elections officials to hand count and manually upload vote totals from several precincts across the state. Election coordinator Lauri Wilson said several Diebold touchscreen machines in Southeast Alaska, the Interior and near Nome did not upload their votes into the Division of Elections’ central computing system. The machines’ modems either did not get a dial tone or had other problems, Wilson said.

The votes from touchscreen voting machines in four Kodiak precincts had to be manually uploaded because the electronic ballots were required to be presented in more than one language, Wilson said. Affected were seven precincts in Southeast Alaska and Kodiak, five in the Interior - including Nenana, Healy and Tok - and Unalakleet. One precinct’s optical scanner voting machine also could not connect by modem, Wilson said. Election officials worked into the early morning hours manually uploading the information from those precincts into the overall election results.

“We’ve got new technology. Particularly in rural Alaska, we’re going from the paper ballot to cutting-edge technology and the entire process is being slowed down,” said Division of Elections Director Whitney Brewster. Alaska Democratic Party spokeswoman Kay Brown said the slowdown caused by the touchscreen machines is indicative of larger problems with the machines. “I can say there are many systematic problems with Diebold machines that have been identified in many contexts,” Brown said. “That there were technical glitches with the machines is not surprising, and it’s one indication of the kinds of things that can go wrong with the machines and it’s something to be concerned about.”

The day before the election, the Democratic party urged voters to choose paper ballots instead of the touchscreen machine. They say Diebold’s touch screen machines may be insecure and vulnerable to attack.

The Diebold electronic voting machines nationwide have been criticized by voter groups and computer scientists who say they are vulnerable to fraud. Diebold has defended the machines, saying they are secure when elections officials follow proper procedures.

Concern over the machines led the Alaska Legislature in 2005 to pass a law requiring a mandatory hand count of ballots in one randomly selected precinct in every election district.

Brewster said the slowdown has nothing to do with fraud concerns and asked Alaskans to be patient as the division goes through a new process.

“Just because they’re not being uploaded doesn’t mean they’re not being recorded accurately,” Brewster said.

By mid-morning Wednesday, 87 percent of the state’s precincts had reported results. Several legislative races were still undecided.

The federal Help America Vote Act requires one touchscreen machine in every voting precinct for elections starting this year.

People with disabilities advocated for machines that would enable them to vote without help. A voice-guidance feature would allow blind voters to use the Diebold machines and vote in private for the first time.