There should be a report out this afternoon on what the Secretary of State will require for California’s voting systems for next years 3 elections. The law requires that any changes must be done 180 days before an election, which means today is it for next February’s Term Limit Extension Election…oh, that the Presidential primary election is piggybacking upon.
Elections require a process that voters can be confident in their fairness and accessibility. California has had 8 statewide elections since the 2000 Presidential election, plus numerous local and special elections in between the statewides. During that has been the transition to more electronic/paperless ballots at polling places as required by HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, federal law passed after the Florida election fiasco. Much money has been spent to change out election systems nationwide, including here, to hopefully boost security and confidence in election results, lower costs with much less paper ballots being printed etc. and laudable improved accessibility for the blind and others with disabilities
There are as many as 8 different election systems or variations available in California. Secretary of State [and former Senator] Debra Bowen has taken the debate in a different direction after assuming the S of S office reins from Secretary Bruce McPherson. Bruce, a former colleague [and a good friend] in the legislature came in under tough circumstances with HAVA kicking in, new electronic voting machines needing review and certification with elections looming in ’05 and ’06, and lot of squawking over certifying them in time. Plus a lot of second guessing about whether they deserve certification. After a very a closely watched review and certification process, Secretary McPherson did certify the machines that were successfully used in the ’05 and ’06 elections. No problem was found with vote counts on any of the machines in the state. A state mandate to require a printed receipt for each ballot had some hitches in that printer technology had to be rushed to apply to meet the mandate for existing voting systems, and some printers had jamming problems etc., but nothing that afftected a vote count or outcome under a trying circumstance.
In short, it works. Refinements as time goes by are good but elections have worked well in California since then. Secretary Bowen, who I like and respect, has been re-reviewing the systems already certified, which of 8 available, 3 have been re-reviewed, Hart, Sequoia, and the Dems favorite whipping boy, Diebold. There are 23 counties affecting over 6 million voters that have touch screen voting in place. A possible de-certification of some of these systems is rumored. This of course would throw county election offices into yet another hurricane of revamping in time for one, two or all three elections next year.
It hasn’t been easy for County Election clerks and their staffs already, with catching up employees [some who receive less than minimum wage] with much new training as well as other new mandates affecting their duties. The higher numbers of provisional ballots, last minute mail-ins and others that require special last minute handling of ballots cause post election canvassing and certification to be a challenge to make it in time for the 28 day post election certification requirement.
Then we have the bright idea of having same day registration [on election day] legislation that would add to that provisional stack…making the workload in election offices such that soon a 60 day period to count and certify votes will be necessary. [How about voter accountability as an idea? There’s been a lot of ads and campaign mail for weeks leading up to an election, to remind voters, closing registration 15 days before isn’t a lot to ask of a prospective voter.]
California has 58 counties, 58 county election clerks, both Democrat and Republican, male and female, that are elected by their county constituents to run their elections. HAVA regrettably stole some of their authority and subjects them to more state control. We should let these folks that we delegate this work to, do their jobs and be accountable for it, not micromanage even more from Sacramento. Rumored new legislation to affect these systems for the looming ’08 election may be coming and a gut-and-amend bill vehicle attempted in our final 30 days of session this September. We will need to be wary as more chaos and great expense will ensue from changing it all over again Let the HAVA dollars already expended work and not have dollars left be swept up into unnecessary duplication of effort.
Hopefully, the decision today is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater with California’s voting systems, and yes even the Diebold units that have stood up to scrutiny as well.