Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Machines to print voting receipts

Nevada voters to have at least one printer at each site

Elections operations specialist Linda Bauer on Monday demonstrates a touch-screen voting machine that produces a printed receipt for verification. The printers, required by federal law, will be used in Nevada's elections this year. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Nevada counties will be the first in the nation to offer a verification printout of a completed ballot, allowing voters to review their choices before processing them, state election officials said.

The voter verification printers are one part of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which became federal law following the Florida election debacle of 2000. Key elements of the law mandated replacing all punch-card voting machines and allowing each voter to privately verify and correct errors on a ballot before casting the vote.

The software necessary for the printouts was approved by the federal government last week. Nevada is the only state aiming to work out all the bugs and have the computer program running by September's primary election, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said.

"Nevada will be the first and only state to use this verification trail," Lomax said. "The whole country is heading this way to watch."

Clark County will have one print-out machine at each polling place. The county's older machines are not capable of providing printouts.

Rural Nevada counties soon will receive new touch-screen voting machines to accommodate the software.

Nevada entered a $9 million contract with Sequoia Voting Systems for 2,000 new computers and 3,000 printers, Lomax said. The county's older machines will be retrofitted after the election to accommodate printers.

The new program is federally funded.

Steve George, spokesman for Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller, said the new touch-screen machines are expected to be delivered in early August.

"We will meet the federal mandate that requires that each polling place have at least one machine (with the printer)," George said.

All early voting polling places in Clark County will have only the touch-screen voting machines with the printer, George said.

When voters enter their polling place, they will be given receipts that are assigned numbers.

Those numbers appear on the voting machine's computer screen and the printout, which scrolls up behind a plastic window. Voters can then verify the printout coincides with the computerized ballot by checking whether the numbers match.

"The printer scrolls out all the candidates you voted for," Lomax said. "You verify who you voted for, and if you accept it, you cast your ballot. It provides an independent paper record of what's in the computer's memory."

Voters who unintentionally cast the wrong vote can re-enter their choice.

The printouts will be stored in a county vault, Lomax said.

Lomax said the fact the number appears on the printout does not compromise a voter's privacy.

"That machine has no clue who's voting, and there is no way to trace it to the voter," Lomax said. "There is nothing that in any way, shape or form ties a ballot to the voter."

The federal mandate to provide printed receipts of votes cast stemmed from controversy that erupted in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Florida voters used punch-card ballots, resulting in a significant number of "undervotes," or votes that could not be detected.

It took 36 days for Florida election officials to sort out the mess and for George W. Bush to finally be declared the winner of the presidency.

Nevada has never experienced such controversies, but election officials pushed for the voter verification printers for the 2004 elections because Nevada is considered a battleground state critical to the outcome of the presidential election.

"We know our elections are honest," Lomax said. "But there is a small minority that doesn't trust government."

The federal government was expected to certify the new software months ago, but the approval was delayed because of various snags. County election officials typically like to begin testing new software six months before an election, but Lomax said he is confident the Sept. 7 primary election will run smoothly.

"We are going to be operating under a compressed schedule, but we do have the software," Lomax said. "Everyone can rest assured we'll make it work and feel comfortable with it."