Voting System

Secure in her primary election victory for Howard County register of wills, a tired, but happy Kay K. Hartleb relaxed at home last September -- until she flipped on her television.An errant county voting machine computer chip gave Larry G. Fales, her Republican rival, an extra 40,000 votes -- more votes, she knew, than were cast for both candidates combined."It was a real shocker," Hartleb remembers, chuckling. "I had won easily. I had seen it at [election] headquarters."The computer error was quickly corrected, but county elections administrator Barbara W. Feaga said the incident helped convince her it is time to start shopping for a new voting system.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- After Indonesia's first democratic elections in 44 years, the ruling Golkar party of ousted President Suharto has conceded defeat, ending decades of one-party rule.But thanks to a complex and indirect voting system, the race for the presidency is just beginning and the final winners and losers in Indonesia's transition to democracy are not clear.A year after anti-Suharto riots killed 1,200 and forced the autocrat to step down, voters' expectations for democratic change are soaring.

ClarificationIn a Sept. 4 editorial, we wrote that if city voters fail to push a "cast the vote" button on Baltimore's computerized machines, judges would have to step into the booth to do so for them. The judges are under instructions not to do that. Rather, they have been told to push the orange (not yellow) button by reaching inside the booth, without entering it. The editorial also should have noted Baltimore County computerized its voting machines in 1996, not in 1966.WHEN primary elections are held Sept.

William Poole, blind since the age of 9, elected not to vote yesterday after deciding that a new technology used to cast ballots in Baltimore County could not protect the secrecy of his vote.Election officials in Towson worked with Mr. Poole for nearly a half-hour on a computerized voting system to find a way for the 38-year-old unemployed actor to vote without jeopardizing his confidentiality. In the end, however, he couldn't be sure of not making a mistake on his own and did not want to tell someone his choices and have that person cast his vote for him."

Baltimore County's new computerized voting system will mean fewer lines and faster results in tomorrow's primary election.The new Op-Tech III Eagle voting system, similar to those used in Anne Arundel, Howard, Harford and Carroll counties, will replace the 800-pound mechanical machines the county has used since the Korean War.Baltimore County is the first jurisdiction to convert to the new system since a Maryland election task force report in January recommended...

An experimental, Braille voting device will let blind voters cast secret ballots Tuesday, in Maryland's first attempt to provide a way for some of the state's 2,100 blind people to vote without human assistance.If it works, the system -- developed after complaints from a blind voter about lack of privacy -- will be expanded across Maryland for 1998 state and local elections, said Gene Raynor, administrator of the State Administrative Board of Election Laws.As of Tuesday, any blind Second Congressional District resident in Baltimore County can arrange to vote at the Towson precinct that uses the device by calling the Baltimore County Board of Elections at 887-5700.

A referendum to give all residents over age 18 the right to vote in community association elections in Columbia's Wilde Lake village failed yesterday, ending a costly and labor-intensive campaign that advocates believed would create a more democratic voting system.The proposal was to amend covenants on Wilde Lake's property, which allow one vote for each household, to permit all eligible residents to vote.Residents annually elect five association directors and one representative to the Columbia Council, which oversees Columbia Association operations.

Worcester County is being told by a federal judge in Baltimore to adopt a new, hybrid method of electing commissioners that would apply one set of rules to primary elections and a different set to general elections.Such a variant on traditional voting systems for local government would be unique in Maryland, at least.U.S. District Senior Judge Joseph H. Young's new order is the latest development in a 2-year-old voting-rights fight to determine how Worcester countians will elect commissioners.

EASTON -- Worcester County residents waiting to conduct a County Commission election that has been delayed by a legal battle over voting rights will have to wait longer.An opinion released late Friday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., agreed with a ruling by a lower court judge that Worcester's traditional election system was unlawful.But the three-member panel ordered the matter resolved at the county level. The jurists rejected a lower court judge's imposition this summer of a new, controversial voting system, but declined to suggest what kind of system should be used.

The Columbia Council and the unincorporated city's 10 village associations are divided over whether Columbia should institute any type of referendum allowing residents to vote on council decisions.The council debated last night pros and cons of a resolution to allow a nonbinding advisory vote on any matter under the authority of the council, which serves as the Columbia Association's Board of Directors.Under the proposed resolution, a nonbinding vote would be a measure of opinion, but would not change, or substitute for, a council decision.

Two years after the General Assembly authorized a switch to a paper-ballot voting system, state elections officials warn that no vendor would be able to meet the law's stringent requirements by tomorrow's bidding deadline. Maryland's move to paper ballots also has raised concerns among the disabled community, which objects to a system that diminishes voting privacy because some would need assistance to complete paper ballots. And fiscal conservatives say the estimated five-year cost of nearly $39 million is too much to pay when the state is struggling to balance its budget.

After years of problems with the state's touch-screen voting system, Maryland has filed a claim to recover $8.5 million from the maker of the machines, Premier Election Solutions, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced yesterday. The claim seeks costs the state incurred to correct security gaps in the voting system that were uncovered several years ago by independent investigations. The state has paid $90 million under a contract with Premier, formerly known as Diebold, since 2001.

A vote to transcend politics of prejudice On Tuesday, I voted, with my daughter by my side, and I experienced something unexpected: My eyes welled up, and a tear dropped. I suppose I was simply overwhelmed by the fact that I was actually voting for an African-American candidate for president ("Making history," Nov. 5). I am too young to remember the civil rights struggle. But I am a student of history, and I live in this world where prejudice and ignorance still reign. And frankly, I never expected that this day would come.

We have all heard the prophecies of Election Day fiascos: long lines at the polls, voting machines that crash, malicious hackers corrupting electronic voting systems or the optical scanners used to count paper ballots. The list goes on. It also ignores one of the biggest threats to the election: voters mistakenly casting their ballots for candidates they did not intend to support. Unlike the other threats, voters can avoid this one. Butterfly ballot redux? Maybe not. But the results of a multiyear, multistate study I conducted with a team of computer scientists, psychologists and political scientists demonstrate that enough voters could accidentally choose the wrong candidate to change the outcome of a close election.

Paper ballots prompt concern for disabled In "Out with the new ... in with the old" (Commentary, Sept. 16), Avi Rubin expresses relief that Maryland's voting system is on the verge of taking a "step backward" toward the return of paper ballots. However, to many voters with disabilities, this "step backward" is a concern. Maryland's current electronic touch-screen voting machines have provided many voters with disabilities the opportunity to vote independently and privately for the first time.

A group that has protested the state's use of electronic voting machines is advocating the use of paper ballots in the November presidential election in case of long lines at state polls. SAVE Our Votes released a report yesterday predicting that some voters could wait hours to cast ballots in the Nov. 4 election. The study, by physicist William Edelstein, found that voters at most polling places could experience waits of more than two hours. Edelstein, a member of SAVE Our Votes, a nonprofit group that advocates for secure, accessible and verifiable elections in the state, said that even if the state brings in additional voting machines, the flood of voters could be overwhelming.

The early primaries decide the fate for most of the candidates; the results determine who gets media coverage and who can raise the funds to continue an effective campaign. The rush by states to move their primaries earlier points to the unfairness of a process that makes the early primaries overly decisive in the choice of each party's candidate. To remedy this, we offer a simple modification of the voting system that would decrease the importance of the early primaries, encourage a better discussion of the issues facing the nation, give voters a better chance to represent their concerns, and result in a vote count that better reflects true voter support for each candidate.

Fund the transition to scanned ballots The Sun's editorial urging the governor to fund the paper ballot bill was right on point ("Another voting glitch," Nov. 26). However, two of the issues the editorial raised need clarification. On the issue of voting access for the disabled, it is worth noting that optical-scan systems can be made more accessible to disabled voters through a ballot-marking device such as the AutoMark system. This device is designed to help blind or vision-impaired voters and those with arthritis, Parkinson's or age-related illnesses or even a broken arm to vote independently in privacy.

The case of the Rockville absentee voters who weren't is a reminder that human error, not technology, is usually the biggest obstacle to those who run elections. The incident was unfortunate - roughly 10 percent of the city's electorate was accidentally classified as absentee for the Nov. 6 municipal election - but the consequences could have been far worse. As it was, about 10 people were directed to go to Rockville City Hall to straighten out their situation. It's likely some didn't bother and therefore didn't vote.

O'Malley OKs buying new voting system Maryland would scrap its $65 million electronic voting system and replace it with machines that have a paper record under a bill signed yesterday by Gov. Martin O'Malley. The new system, estimated to cost $18 million to $20 million, is aimed at ensuring the integrity of elections and avoiding a repeat of the voting machine problems during last fall's primary. If funding is approved, the machines could be ready for the 2010 election. O'Malley also signed a measure that would allow voters to decide in 2008 whether to allow early voting at a limited number of polling places.