Reply #33: States and Localities Prepare for Jan. 1 HAVA and E-Voting Deadline

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States and Localities Prepare for Jan. 1 HAVA and Electronic Voting Deadline
Wayne Hanson
Dec 02, 2005
Last year Washington state experienced what State Elections Director Nick Handy termed "the mother of all recounts," during the closest governor's race in U.S. history. "2.8 million people voted and we counted the ballots three times," he said. Thirty-eight of the state's 39 counties had been tallied, and the state waited, electrified, for the final county's results. The reason? The candidates were only eight votes apart.

Nick Handy


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California's Best Practices Blueprint

Bruce McPherson


"We are entering a new era of voting systems technology," said California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson in his introductory remarks at his summit in Sacramento. Among the challenges facing voting officials, he explained are the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) as well as building voter confidence and accessibility.

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The Federal View

Paul DeGregorio


HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, will take effect Jan. 1, said Paul DeGregorio, of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) which was created by HAVA. The purpose of HAVA, says the Act, is: "To establish a program to provide funds to states to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for states and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of federal elections, and for other purposes."

State View

Sandy Steinbach


Sandy Steinbach, chair of the NASED Voting Systems Board, and director of elections for the Iowa Secretary of State, said voting systems qualification is not a new process. "We've had computerized voting since the 1960s and 70s," she said, "including computerized voting machines, punch cards, optical scan, and optical scan central count." But voting system failures create tension, she said. Back in 1975, a National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) report said that lack of technical skill at state and local levels were the primary cause of computer related problems. Congress responded in 1984 -- nine years later -- to develop voluntary national standards, and six years later, in 1990, the FEC issued the performance and test standards for punchcard, marksense, and direct recording systems. Then in 2002, the FEC issued the revised standards currently in effect, which are the basic standards incorporated into HAVA, explained Steinbach. "They are in effect until they are replaced by the EAC."

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Paul Craft


Paul Craft of the Florida Secretary of State's Office, said the Florida Legislature decided to set standards without waiting for the new federal standards to come out. He said that standards should be clear, understandable, consistent and reasonable, and not "include stuff that hasn't been invented yet."

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Brit Williams


"Texas is the only state that has more counties than we have," said Dr. Brit Williams of Georgia. "I'm not sure that's anything to brag about." He, like Washington's Nick Handy, said that errors in vote tallying were because of human error. "We had 4,000 ballot scanners for the 2002 election, and not a single glitch was attributed to the voting system."

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Local Concerns

Connie Schmidt


Connie Schmidt, former election commissioner of Johnson County Kansas, said many small counties don't even have computers, and rely on vendors to set up for elections. "There may be no budgets for them to attend conferences like this," said Schmidt, "how do we even know what is certified? Do we know what we received is the certified version? Should we perform our own testing? How do we stay informed about new version releases? How do we educate our voters and election officials?

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