Voting smooth with new touch-screen machines

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 9:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Voting in Carson City with the new touch-screen machines went smoothly Tuesday as federal officials looked on.

"I've never seen an election go so well," said Carson City Clerk Alan Glover.

DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Elections Assistance Committee, plus staff members from the House of Representatives toured Carson City, Douglas and Washoe counties election sites.

Soaries said a general lack of technical knowledge leads to a concern about hacking of the machines. He said having a paper trail "doesn't prevent that." He said the problems could arise in the custody of the machines and unlawful access to the computer codes.

The election ballot was short in Carson City with only a handful of candidates. But Glover said "This gives the workers a chance to get trained for the general" election.

The numbers in Clark County were slowly reported early in the evening because of a software problem, said Larry Lomax, the county's top elections official.

He said the software was tabulating the votes correctly but didn't tabulate the number of precincts that were reporting.

The problem, he said, was that his office didn't get the software early enough in the year to test it.

The glitch slowed the release of information, as Lomax's staff tried to get that fixed. The staff finally gave up and began releasing voter updates at regular intervals.

The new machines worked well, Lomax said.

"The observers haven't had anything negative to say," he said. "As far as I know, it has gone fine."

Overall, Tracey Graham, president of Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based company that manufacturers the machines, said "This is good the first time out."

"It's a great trial run" both for the voters and the election workers, Graham said.

Assuming all works, Nevada will be the first state in the nation to have a voter verification system, said Graham. A voter, using the new machines, can see a printed version of the candidates he or she cast their ballot for.

Graham said a random five percent of the printed ballots will be counted after the election to see if they agree with the electronic tally.

Congress is considering legislation that would require the touch-screen voting machines, but no decision is expected until the next Congress.

Roy Trenoweth, hired to help people who may have encountered problems with the new touch-screen machines, said "The old people love it." He said the voter "is in and out in two minutes."

Like an ATM machine, a voter inserts a card into the machine and the election ballot comes up. One voter said he kept inserting the card but it kept popping out. There were minor problems with other cards.

But there were no waiting lines for people to cast their ballots. Voting is expected to be light in this election.