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State board OKs funds for early voting |
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Fearing more delays, Ehrlich says yes to first wave of devices By Andrew A. Green
Sun reporter
Originally published June 8, 2006
The state Board of Public Works approved a $2.4 million contract
yesterday for new computer equipment that elections officials say is
crucial to administering early voting this year, despite continued
reservations by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Ehrlich reiterated a host of complaints about early voting - which will
allow selected polls to open five days before the primary and general
elections - and other election laws passed over his vetoes by the
Democratic-led General Assembly. The governor said the measures are "a
joke" and "an invitation to fraud."
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But faced with state and local election officials who said delaying or
rejecting the contract with Diebold Election Systems would jeopardize
their ability to administer the balloting this fall, Ehrlich voted
reluctantly for it. He said, however, that he would continue to support
a petition drive aimed at overturning early voting, as well as court
challenges to the new rules.
"We're going to vote favorably on this, obviously, because we have no
other option," Ehrlich told state Elections Administrator Linda H.
Lamone at the board meeting. "You'll do the best you can, I know you
will, but you'll get instructions, I suspect, from the courts."
The contract is for the first installment of "e-poll books," which are
touch-screen computer devices that effectively replace the paper lists
of registered voters elections judges check in each precinct. They are
key to the elections board's plans to prevent people from casting
multiple ballots during the early voting period.
The board's plan calls for the machines to be networked to one another
within each jurisdiction so that if a person votes early at one polling
place, he or she will not be able to do so at another.
Elections officials said yesterday's contract will give them enough
machines for training of election judges but that they will need to get
board approval for additional contracts totaling about $14 million
before the fall.
Ehrlich and members of his administration have attacked the devices.
Yesterday, the governor questioned how the machines would be connected
to one another and whether the state has a backup plan in case they
fail.
State Deputy Elections Administrator Ross Goldstein told Ehrlich that
the machines operate independently, so that if one of them fails, the
others will still work. If the network fails, he said, there would be
no way to prevent a voter from casting multiple ballots in one day in
his home county during early voting.
"That's a really bad answer," Ehrlich said.
Goldstein replied that the networking has been tested and that it
works. After the meeting, he said that anyone who tried such a scheme
would run the risk of being caught and prosecuted.
Alex Zeese, a spokesman for TrueVoteMD, an elections process watchdog
group that has been critical of Maryland's touch-screen voting
machines, also made by Diebold, said it is disturbing that the state is
putting all its fath in one company. Furthermore, he said, changes are
being implemented so fast that it's impossible to know whether the new
process will work.
"We are streamlining the process, and we might be doing it too much
where we're removing those valuable checks and balances that have made
voting secure," Zeese said.
Several local election board officials attended the meeting yesterday to support the e-poll books contract.
Guy C. Mickley, deputy director of the Howard County Board of Elections
and president of the Maryland Association of Elections Administrators,
said he has seen the machines work in municipal elections and believes
they provide a level of security the state has never had.
Sandi Logan, the elections director from Caroline County, said the new
"process has been somewhat forced on us," but that she's confident that
the elections can be administered without the possibility of fraud. She
said she's never been convinced there was a big possibility of people
trying to vote multiple times to begin with.
"We've never had that problem in Caroline County," Logan said. "I'm
sure it must happen someplace if they keep talking about it."
Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, who joined Ehrlich in voting for the contract,
said continued delays could make the governor's fears of a chaotic
election self-fulfilling.
"Continued inaction by this board is what will make the present schedule for elections difficult to enact," she said.
Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, who earlier in the meeting was
given a cake by first lady Kendel Ehrlich to celebrate his return to
health after a brief illness, abstained from the vote. Schaefer said he
is concerned about all the changes and doesn't see the need to monkey
with a system that has worked.
"I just think we should have a good, plain, simple election," he said. "You come in to vote, and that's it."
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