Orange County Might Go High-Tech on Election Day

Voters in Orange County won’t have to worry about dimpled, dented or hanging chads if the Board of Supervisors approves a contract today to buy thousands of electronic voting devices from a Texas company.

The board is considering a $26.1-million contract to install an electronic voting system before the primary election in March. The price includes 9,000 electronic voting tablets, training of poll workers and a public relations effort to familiarize voters with the system.

The move is a byproduct of the 2000 presidential election in which punch-card machines, similar to those used in Orange County, were blamed for thousands of disqualified ballots in Florida.

Results of that election were on hold during 36 days of recounts and court battles that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court awarding the election to George W. Bush. At issue was what to do with thousands of ballots on which voters did not completely punch out the paper rectangles, or chads.

Orange County’s interim registrar of voters, Steve Rodermund, said the new system will be easy to use and highly accurate. He said the entire cost will be absorbed by state and federal funds. In October, President Bush signed the “Help America Vote Act,” which allocated $3.9 billion to upgrade voting equipment throughout the country. Orange County expects to receive $10 million, plus an additional $16 million in state funds.

Some officials question whether a purely electronic system is safe, considering the finicky nature of computers.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has assembled a task force to study the security of electronic voting systems. One issue being discussed is whether the state will require electronic voting systems to produce paper receipts for elections officials, a safety net in case the computer systems fail.

Orange County officials selected a voting system manufactured by Hart InterCivic Inc. of Austin, Texas, whose biggest customer to date has been Harris County, Texas, which includes the city of Houston. The equipment Orange County hopes to buy can be modified -- at additional cost -- to produce paper receipts, Rodermund said.

Harris County officials used the equipment in the November election and were pleased with the results, said John German, an elections administrator. “We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from the public,” he said.

Rodermund spent much of the last week talking to Orange County supervisors about the new system. Although some remain concerned about the need for a paper trail, others say the county might be better off without it. Supervisor Bill Campbell said he believes the electronic memory is sufficient and that a paper record is not worth the cost, which he said could be $5 million or more.