County gets mixed advice on mail-vote technology

Can't live with a new computer, can't live without it.

That was pretty much what dueling advisers told the Metropolitan King County Council on Monday about the technology the county will need to start all-mail voting next year.

First the council heard from Ellen Hansen, Citizens' Elections Oversight Committee chairwoman and former elections manager, who said it would be too risky to install new vote-counting equipment after moving into a new office and before conducting a presidential election.

Elections Director Sherril Huff then contradicted Hansen, saying it would be too risky to keep using an aging computer database that is strained almost to the breaking point and can't handle 300,000 additional mail votes next November.

If the county doesn't replace its database and tabulators in the next few months, Huff said, all-mail balloting should be delayed until after 2008.

"We have old equipment. We don't believe that it is worth the risk of trying to cobble together equipment into a vote-by-mail election," Huff said.

The high-speed tabulators and tallying system Huff wants to buy from Diebold Election Systems for $1.7 million aren't yet certified by state and federal agencies. The county would buy the equipment only if it receives certification.

If the equipment isn't certified, Huff said, her Plan B is to keep polling places open next year and use existing equipment, with modifications, to count mail ballots. King County also plans to consolidate its scattered election facilities into a single building in Renton in order to streamline operations.

Oversight chief Hansen said it would be difficult to install, test and train workers on a new system by next year. Recalling the Republican Party's challenge in Chelan County Superior Court of the 2004 governor's election, she said, "All of us remember — I in particular remember — a judge in Chelan County asking whose idea was it to implement a new system in a presidential year."

Hansen's committee recommended splitting the existing database in half, adding more tabulators, and hiring more temporary workers to run the tabulators.

Council members didn't reach any conclusions after hearing the conflicting testimony. Julia Patterson, chairwoman of the committee-of-the-whole, said she plans to bring the equipment purchase up for a vote July 30.

Councilmember Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, proposed planning on dual tracks: buying new equipment if kinks can be worked out in time for the presidential election, using existing equipment if it can't.

Laird Hail, the elections office information-systems manager, said using old equipment in new ways would require authorization from state officials and would be slow and cumbersome because King County has numerous precincts and complicated ballots.

Pam Floyd, assistant elections director for the Washington secretary of state, said her office wouldn't object to continued use of existing equipment, but she said adding more old-style tabulators would increase the likelihood of human error in counting votes.

Councilmember Kathy Lambert, R-Redmond, was critical of Democrats' desire to implement mail voting next year in the face of technical difficulties. "There are two sides," she said: "one that wants vote-by-mail and one that wants accuracy."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com