OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Charles Coffey emerged from voting at a
fire station and with a disgruntled sigh, slapped a red, white and
blue ``I voted today'' sticker on his T-shirt. He just wasn't sure
if his computer-cast ballot counted.
The real estate investor was suspicious that the touch-screen
voting computer could have been rigged to vote ``yes'' on the
recall and feared it could have recorded the registered Democrat
as voting for Republican winner Arnold Schwarzenegger.
``I have no confidence at all in electronic voting,'' the
54-year-old said. ``I have no confidence in any voting system after
what happened in Florida.''
Coffey had a chorus of company this week in Alameda County, one
of California's most liberal enclaves and one of the largest
counties in the nation to swap paper ballots in favor of
touch-screen terminals. His cynicism may resonate with voters
nationwide as some computer scientists cast doubt on popular
touch-screen systems, while the hanging chad debacle in Florida's
2000 presidential election taints older voting methods.
While elections officials and the makers of computer voting
terminals say the systems are safe, they speed lines at the polls
and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in printing costs, new
research on the theoretical dangers of electronic voting seemed to
fan emotions over the recall despite no reported cases of fraud and
no demand for a re-count.
In Alameda County, many voters have expressed a sense of
disappointment, disenfranchisement, even talk of right-wing
conspiracies.
``The companies that run this software aren't smart enough to
compete against an 8-year-old hacker,'' Shawn Taylor, a 31-year-old
writer in Oakland who cast his vote against the recall and for a
virtually unknown independent candidate, Badi Badiozamani. ``As
soon as my vote leaves the screen, someone with an agenda can
manipulate it.''
People who have faith in electronic voting say critics are
spurning a mainstream trend.
``They're unfairly eroding people's faith in voting,'' said Mark
Radke, director of the voting industry division of Ohio-based
Diebold, which sold Alameda County 4,000 touch-screens and has
installed 50,000 nationwide.
To comply with the Help America Vote Act, which requires
counties to upgrade from punch card systems to be eligible for
federal funds, precincts nationwide are switching to touch-screens.
Sharon Golden, 45, a floral designer from Riverside, said the
electronic voting system gave her confidence her vote was being
counted instantly.
``I thought it was a lot better than the punching,'' Golden said
Wednesday. ``After you voted it plugged everything in, your whole
ballot, and then it said push this button and your vote will be
counted, so your vote was counted right away.''
But Bev Harris, author of ``Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering
in the 21st Century,'' which debuted last week online, has
documented more than 100 incidents of computer miscounts from
Georgia to Washington state, including glitches that allegedly
resulted in the wrong candidate being declared winner. Harris said
Alameda County voters shouldn't presume their votes are cast
properly.
According to a study in July by Johns Hopkins and Rice
universities, any clever hacker could break into Diebold's system
and vote multiple times. Researchers also found it was possible for
hackers or insiders to fix the outcome.
David Dill, a computer science professor at Stanford University
and a leading skeptic of electronic voting, last week urged voters
in Alameda and three other California counties using touch-screen
terminals to vote with paper absentee ballots counted by the
optical scan method.
Numerous voters said Tuesday they'd feel more comfortable if the
computers spit out receipts confirming that paper results match
their touch-screen choices.
Even the most skeptical voters admitted that touch-screens were
faster and less confusing than other systems, which required voters
to flip through several pages of choices.
``I'm very comfortable with computers,'' said Aaron Chatterji, a
25-year-old graduate student at University of California's Haas
School of Business in Berkeley. ``I doubt my parents would feel so
comfortable, but I really like this system.''
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Associated Press Writer Lisa Leff contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Diebold's corporate Web site: http://www.diebold.com
Black Box Voting site: http://www.blackboxvoting.com
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)