Haven't seen any messages from CVV today. Here is a disgusting slam at CVV in today's Longmont Times Call.
Election Autopsy By Travis Henry
The Daily Times-CallThe Boulder County commissioners have assembled a committee to look into what went wrong during the general election. Sometime next year, there will be the usual findings, recommendations and general observations that come along with any committee charged with a task. Special committees are a common response to a public outcry. Any further criticism can now be met with “we have formed a committee to look into this.” It is a way of taking a matter seriously.
Yet, a committee’s conclusions often are not stern enough or congratulatory enough for either side of an issue. Most committees, especially investigative ones, don’t have the time, resources or authority to bring about real change. This is usually how the powers-that-be want it.
In this case, the committee will make a recommendation and the county clerk’s election staff will go about its business and implement the changes they see fit to make sure the longest election in recent Boulder County history doesn’t happen again. If some of those changes mirror the committee’s suggestions, all the better.
That is not to say the system doesn’t work well. In fact, it is how it must be. The elections office now knows its performance was unacceptable, the public will be appeased because the county held the office accountable and the commissioners can say they took the issue seriously.
In the end, the Boulder County Clerk’s Office — which presided over the fiasco in the first place — still will decide exactly what changes need to be made.
• • •
Boulder County Clerk Linda Salas has always been an amiable public official. Including dissenting views in decision-making processes and performing duties in a transparent fashion have been her trademarks since her days in Erie.
Before besting former county commissioner Jana Mendez and Republican Dennis Ceremug in 2002 for the county job, Salas served as Erie’s town clerk for four years. In the 10 years before that, she was a deputy clerk in Louisville and the city of Boulder. Until now, her jobs were not elected positions and politics had little influence in her day-to-day duties.
During her campaign for county clerk against political heavyweight Mendez, Salas’ platform was based on non-controversial topics, such as expanding customer service and using electronic voting in elections.
Today, the unassuming Salas stands in the center of the charred remains of Boulder County’s 2004 general election, which to put it mildly, was a fiasco.
Boulder County did not finish counting precinct ballots until late Friday, Nov. 5, three days after the election.
Angry letter writers, confused politicians and editorial writers have demanded accountability for the slow election results. Salas, the political neophyte, has said she fully expects a recall effort against her. Last Tuesday — a week after election day — as temporary election workers still were counting provisional ballots, Salas looked tired and a bit overwhelmed.
“I am the clerk and I take full responsibility for this election,” Salas said.
• • •
Despite the complexity of Boulder County’s new $1.4 million system and the confusion surrounding the slow count, the reason behind the delayed results can be boiled down to two key issues.
First: Up to 6,000 multiple-page ballots were improperly printed, causing the county’s optical scanners to reject them. County workers were slow to recognize what was causing the problem and could do little to fix it. Rejected ballots had to be counted by hand and slowed the entire process. Tired troops and a lack of trained replacements became the norm as the ballots piled up.
“After we reached a point, we just had staff meltdown,” county elections manager Tom Halicki said.
Second: Salas and the county elections office have made enfranchising every possible voter and counting every vote their highest priority. The county’s mantra is that mismarked ballots shouldn’t be rejected. Better to take an hour to determine who a voter wanted for president than not allow that vote to be counted.
The solution to the first issue should be a no-brainer: Figure out the printing problem and fix it. And make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The “solution” to the second issue — if there needs to be one — is not so straightforward.
• • •
Shortly after beginning her first term, Salas and the county bent over backwards to appease a vocal group that seemed to be skeptical of any voting machines that used electricity.
Today that philosophy has made for strange bedfellows between the county and a group of residents who seem to question everything the county tries to do election-wise.
In 2002, counties around the nation, including Boulder County, were ordered to replace their punch-card voting system. Salas assembled a 20-member citizens group to help the county choose a new system.
Several members of that committee formed their own group called Citizens for Verifiable Voting.
In 2003, CVV vowed to oppose any system that did not use paper ballots. At the time, Salas and Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson both said they were in favor of electronic voting systems.
The county commissioners agreed with CVV that ATM-like, electronic direct-recording equipment, DREs, had too many security questions associated with them.
Another option was a system that uses paper ballots that are fed into a machine and tallied electronically at individual precincts. Results are then delivered, electronically or manually, to a central elections office.
Such a system is in use in Adams, Broomfield, Delta, Douglas, Eagle, El Paso, Larimer, Montezuma, Pitkin, Weld, La Plata, Teller and Yuma counties.
Jan Kuhnen, Larimer County elections director, said the voting machines, made by Diebold, have worked well since they were put in place eight years ago.
CVV members objected to the Diebold machines for Boulder County, claiming that hackers could easily infiltrate the computer software and change election outcomes. Critics also objected to counting at individual precincts.
Salas and election officials abandoned the optical scan and DRE options and eventually purchased a Hart InterCivic BallotNow system, which had primarily been used for absentee elections and as a backup.
The BallotNow system reads ballots using scanners — essentially taking the ballot’s picture — that can identify if a ballot is mismarked or damaged. Questionable ballots are reviewed by a bipartisan panel of election judges who properly mark and file corrected ballots.
Before the new system, damaged or mismarked ballots could be cast out. Boulder County officials claim the BallotNow system allows them to include the true intent of almost every voter. The review of questionable ballots takes time and coupled with the printing problem, added days to this year’s selection process.
“All of the votes counted. Hundreds, maybe thousands that might not have been,” Boulder County spokesman Jim Burrus said. “It is labor-intensive, time-intensive, but it enfranchises hundreds of people.”
In counties with the Diebold system, however, it is almost impossible to end up with a mismarked or damaged ballot in the final election results.
Questionable ballots that are fed into a machine at vote centers or precincts are rejected and voters are able to fill out a new ballot if they choose.
“Voter intent is at the precinct location,” Kuhnen said.
Although Salas and Halicki say the BallotNow system was put in place because of concern from CVV members, they are receiving no applause from members of the group made up of approximately 50 members, most of them computer techies with a lot of time on their hands.
CVV member Evan Ravitz said the county shouldn’t have purchased the new voting machines until the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued its guidelines that all counties will have to adhere to by 2006.
“Ninety percent of CVV wants hand-counting for at least the time being,” Ravitz said. “If we had hand-counting, this would have been over in hours, not days.”
Ravitz believes the county could have rounded up thousands of people who could have helped tally the results for free.
Salas and Halicki disagree that a hand-count would be faster and question whether enough qualified election judges could be trained for an efficient hand-count.
Kuhnen laughed when told about CVV’s idea of a total hand-count for a general election.
“It’s almost hard to believe,” she said.
•••
Just more than a week before the 2004 election, Boulder County’s BallotNow system was still facing legal challenges.
Six voters, including CVV members, sued Salas, claiming the bar codes on the ballots were illegal and violated the right to secret voting. After two days of hearings, a judge dismissed the case, ruling Salas broke no laws.
Election critics also delayed the results of required logic and accuracy tests days before the election by questioning ad nauseam the accuracy of the system.
Some of their challenges were comical and included demands to know how the system would read small marks, marks outside of the boxes, no marks and different-colored inks. At an early ballot test, one CVV member even stained the ballots with food and scribbled over bar codes in an attempt to trip up the system.
Election officials claim the same group who pushed them toward the new system was the group that also delayed proper planning because of its protests against BallotNow.
Printed ballots also arrived late to all counties because of court hearings to determine if presidential candidate Ralph Nader should be on the ballot. Ballots used in the logic and accuracy tests were printed by county computers. The ballots used in the election were printed in bulk by EagleDirect in Denver. EagleDirect officials have said they are looking into what caused the printing errors.
Despite the problems with the 2004 election, Salas now swears by Boulder county’s new election system and the way it “enfranchises” voters.
“It has truly done what it was intended to do,” Salas said.
Although publicly supporting paper ballots for now, election officials also acknowledge that if the county does go to DREs, its current system would be easily adaptable.
By 2006 all counties must provide a system that allows disabled voters to vote unaided in every precinct, according to federal law. Halicki and Salas said this requirement means DREs will most likely arrive in Boulder County by then to supplement the current system. While the DREs will be in place for the disabled, all voters will be able to use the electronic system.
The addition of DREs, no further lawsuits, properly printed ballots on one page and less lengthy logic and accuracy tests could make future election counting more timely, election officials claim.
In reality, the best way to ensure a more efficient election process is for officials to ignore the extreme views of Boulder County CVV members and implement policies that are best for all voters.
The 2004 election was contentious across the country and many voters worked harder than ever to help a candidate or cause. Burrus believes this is why many Boulder County voters were upset that the county totals were not known when races were being called.
“Truth be told, when they call a state (for the president) all of the votes have not been counted anyway, to be honest,” Burrus said.
• • •
A close margin in two races on the county’s ballot could trigger a recount after Nov. 17 when the final vote tallies are certified.
County officials, though, want to hear nothing of it.
“The concept of a recount right now is...” Nancy Jo Wurl said, before stopping herself.
Deputy clerk and recorder Wurl has been with the elections office for 32 years and knows a thing or two about elections in Boulder County.
One of the the most contentious election controversies during her reign as election manager was the bizarre 1998 election, in which 270 ballots in Lafayette were thrown out because they were printed with the wrong candidates’ names. That too was caused by a printer’s error.
In 1996, voters in a small area of north Longmont were allowed a “do over” after a St. Vrain Valley Board of Education candidate contested a 1995 race in which he lost by five votes. Election officials discovered that 15 voters who live in the Thompson Valley School District were accidentally given St. Vrain Valley ballots. A district judge declared the seat vacant, and more than 800 people were allowed to vote in a special election that resulted in a different candidate winning.
But, according to Wurl, only one election she can remember compared to this year’s.
“1976,” Wurl said without hesitation.
That year was the first major election the county had used some newfangled technology called the punch-card system.
People couldn’t figure out how to use it properly and the election counting dragged on for days.
Travis Henry can be reached at 303-776-2244, Ext. 326, or by e-mail at thenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Now in your Sunday Times-Call
