Sean Sands, The Gazette

June 24, 2005

Takoma Park probably will use paper ballots in its municipal election this November, provided the city can work with voting reform advocates to find enough election judges to hand-count the ballots.

The proposal would mean the city would forgo renting electronic voting machines with plastic swipe cards from Montgomery County for the Nov. 8 contest, opting instead for the traditional paper ballots similar to those used in College Park for that city's last two elections.

And while one of the proposal's most vocal supporters, former District 20 Green Party candidate Linda Schade, is most noted for her support of adding a paper trail to the electronic voting machines already in use across much of Maryland, Monday's talk focused on the cost-saving and community-building benefits of using paper over plastic.

Given the city's small size, "It might be a great, I think, community/civic kind of experience to sit in a room and count the ballots like the old days," said the proposal's sponsor, City Councilman Marc Elrich said, noting that the City Council voiced its support in 2004 for electronic voting machines that include a verifiable paper record of the vote.

And, with the use of paper ballots saving the city between $4,000 and $6,000 in rental fees for voting machines, he said the initiative would save taxpayer money, too.

Schade, co-founder of TrueVoteMD and a city resident, said that while much of the discussion about electronic voting has focused on the integrity and security of the machines, the cost of operating the machines has become an issue across the country. Many jurisdictions still use paper ballots, she said. "It's doable, and I think it's fitting with Takoma Park culture."

Robert Richie, executive director of the Takoma Park-based Center for Voting and Democracy, said recent studies, including comprehensive research prepared by the California and Massachusetts institutes of technology, show that paper ballots have a lower error rate than any other category of ballot counting.

Sue Wheaton, who volunteered with TrueVoteMD during the 2004 election, said the city should send a message by using paper ballots because of the uncertainty of using electronic voting machines. She cited an example last year when Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D) of Baltimore, while using a demonstration voting machine, inadvertently grazed the touch screen with her hand, causing an incorrect vote to show up on the machine.

"I have concluded ... that it's degrading to the voter to use those machines," Wheaton said, "because there's no way of knowing what really happens inside them."

Council members were supportive of the concept, but expressed concerns about its recent difficulty in getting a sufficient number of election judges each year. The prospect of counting as many as 3,000 ballots by hand, after a full day of poll monitoring, might keep election judges away, Mayor Kathy Porter said.

The council will need to decide whether or not to use paper ballots at its July 5 meeting because the city must submit a reservation for electronic voting machines by July 6.
###