By Pete Pichaske, Columbia Flier

March 3, 2004

Kathleen and Robert Christine, both in their 60s, are by their own admission, "not real computer literate." But the Ellicott City couple had nothing but praise for the touch-screen voting machines Howard County used for the first time in the March 2 primary election.

"It was a piece of cake. I loved it," Kathleen said.

"I thought it was very clean and bright," added Robert. "And it was nice to be able to see the entire ballot."

The controversial new machines were a hit with Howard County voters this week. But while voters offered little but praise, the process was not without glitches.

Election officials had hoped to have the final results tabulated no more than two hours after the polls closed at 8 p.m. But a computer problem prevented them from downloading the precinct results electronically, delaying the tallies for hours.

Officials didn't release unofficial, complete vote counts until the following afternoon.

Elections director Robert Antonetti said March 3 that a system server card failed, which made it impossible to download precinct results at the elections headquarters in Ellicott City.

A back-up card had the wrong address, said Antonetti, and state elections officials capable of fixing that problem could not be reached immediately.

As a result, vote counts from all 98 Howard County precincts had to be delivered to the elections office Tuesday night, then entered into the computer by hand. Delaying final results even further, a card with results from one precinct was misplaced at the board office and not discovered until Wednesday.

"It was really frustrating," said Antonetti, who for weeks had complained that state election officials were rushing the electronic system into use and keeping local officials in the dark. "If we're going to get this system off the ground, local officials need more input into planning and controls as to what goes on. These are very serious problems."

Although the delay did not alter results, it frustrated those who were expecting earlier returns, including some candidates and local Democrats gathered at a party rally in Columbia's Kahler Hall election night.

"It's too bad," party vice chairman Dan Besseck said. "I guess this happens with a new system."

Not tamper-proof

Maryland leaped to the forefront of the electronic voting movement this year when state election officials ordered that touch-screen machines be used in every jurisdiction except Baltimore city.

The move angered some local elections directors, including Antonetti who is retiring at the end of the month after overseeing two dozen elections in Howard and Prince George's counties.

Other critics have complained that the system Maryland chose, which is designed by Diebold Election System of Canton, Ohio, opens itself to tampering because it leaves no paper trail.

Three reports to the governor and General Assembly, all critical of the system, have added fuel to the complaints. One of the reports, prepared by the Columbia-based RABA Technologies, a security analysis firm, and released last month, uncovered a long list of weaknesses in the system.

"I think Maryland tried to get out front of something they didn't understand," RABA director Michael Wertheimer said.

State lawmakers are considering proposals that would require that each voter's ballot be printed on paper as well as stored electronically, and that 2 percent of the ballots in each jurisdiction be checked against the electronic tallies.

"The thing about these machines is they're not trustworthy," said Kevin Zeese, co-director of True Vote Maryland, an organization campaigning for changes in the electronic system. He said experienced hackers would have no trouble changing vote tallies.

The greatest danger, Zeese said, is that electronic tallies can be altered without the knowledge of election officials. "The smoothest elections may be the ones that were tampered with," he said.

True Vote Maryland held rallies March 2 in Annapolis, Baltimore and Takoma Park to protest the lack of paper ballots. Some voters in Howard County said Tuesday they were concerned about the system's susceptibility to tampering.

"If a machine goes bad, there's no way of recreating" the memory of the votes, said John Ohlmacher of West Friendship.

Most voters, however, praised the machines.

"Very easy, very fast _ there's nothing to it," Lisbon resident John Abraham said. "Anybody who uses a computer won't have any problem."

"I was very concerned beforehand that many people would have problems, but that hasn't happened at all," said Rowena Clough of Ellicott City, an election judge at Ellicott Mills Middle School.

"I've heard about the tampering but you have to have faith," Robert Christine said. "Look at what happened in Florida in the last election. That certainly was not any better than this."

E-mail Pete Pichaske at ppichaske@patuxent.com.

Staff writers Katie Arcieri and Rick Adamczak and special correspondent Alex Quinones contributed to this report.