Rush for voting machines, training before midterm elections

In the continued fracas over electronic voting, election administrators across the country are heading toward the midterm elections still not sure whether they have enough of the newfangled machines that caused an uproar in 2004.

They also are struggling to train hundreds of new poll workers on the intricacies of using and servicing the electronic devices.

Hampered by last-minute deliveries and a confusing array of new voting rules, election officials said they can only hope they don't face a rerun of 2004 — long poll lines caused by malfunctioning machines, poll workers who didn't understand the machines or didn't show up and recounts that in some cases took weeks to complete.

A study released last week by a coalition of voting-rights groups determined that much of the problem is caused by the failure of many states to mandate how many electronic voting machines must be available at each precinct.

In 2004 in Ohio, for example, there were two machines for 1,300 would-be voters at Kenyon College, resulting in extremely long lines and waits of up to 11 hours.

At another nearby precinct, there were many machines and no lines, according to the study conducted by The Century Foundation think tank, Common Cause, and The Leadership Council on Civil Rights.

The study concluded that little had been done to correct the problems from 2004. And some states, it said, had since then made it harder to vote.

More than 90 percent of voters will cast some type of electronic ballot Nov. 7 — either on a touch screen, or on ballots that are electronically scanned, according to Election Data Services, a nonpartisan political-consulting firm. Nearly one-third of those voters will be using new equipment, the company said.

All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs. In the Senate, 33 seats will be decided, as will the offices of 36 governors.

In 2002, Congress approved the Help America Vote Act, a one-time infusion of money to help states redo their antiquated election systems.

Its specific intention was to avoid the hanging-chad disaster of 2000, when recounts of paper ballots in Florida dragged on for weeks and ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some $3.9 billion was promised to states, to be accompanied by reworked election standards.

But in the end, only three-fourths of that amount was disbursed, election officials said, and many of the payouts occurred before newer, stricter voting rules had been created.

Meaning many states bought their machines without federal guidelines.

The big three of machine manufacturers — Nebraska-based Electronic Systems & Software, California-based Sequoia Voting Systems and Diebold Election Systems of Ohio — supply most of the country's precincts.

After the 2004 breakdowns, those companies became the targets of lawsuits in at least nine states. The suits, filed by voters and voter-advocacy groups, claim the machines can be hacked easily, are prone to malfunction and often don't provide a paper receipt that can verify a vote.

The companies deny those claims. But increased demand for the new technology has delayed some deliveries and created problems still being worked out, they say.

According to last week's report, states including Washington, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania are also vulnerable to machine shortages, having suffered similar problems two years before.

"Since 2004, little has been done to ensure that there will be sufficient numbers of machines at the ready to accommodate large numbers of voters," the report said.

Voting-reform activists claim precincts in minority neighborhoods had far fewer machines than those in wealthier areas.