SAN DIEGO — A state elections official said Tuesday thatCalifornia’s secretary of state was forced by insubordinatecounties — including San Diego County — into blessing theelectronic voting equipment that caused polls to open late andvoters to be turned away March 2.
Assistant Secretary of State Marc Carrel told county supervisorsthe state initially refused to certify programming machines used inSan Diego County’s first electronic election March 2, but relentedand gave its blessing when San Diego County Registrar SallyMherson said she would use them “with or without certification.”Counties cannot legally use voting systems until they are certifiedby the state.
Carrel’s allegation prompted county Board of SupervisorsChairwoman Dianne Jacob to accuse the secretary of state’s officeof “buck-ing.” County managers, meanwhile, denied Carrel’saccusation.
“I want to make it very clear,” county Chief istrativeOfficer Walt Ekard said. “These systems were certified by thesecretary of state in this election. We could not have used them ifthey were not certified.”
A still-mysterious power drain is believed to have caused pollworkers to be presented with an unfamiliar computer screen thatprevented them from programming the ATM cardlike “smart cards”voters needed to use new touch-screen voting machines.
State and federal officials had ordered counties to replacepunch-card voting systems by this year’s elections after the 2000presidential election fiasco in Florida.
A preliminary investigation conducted by county managers intothe March 2 problems reported that 36 percent of the county’s 1,611polls were unable to open on time at 7 a.m., and that an unknownnumber of voters were turned away.
On Tuesday, local residents and officials testified for morethan two hours in the first public hearing about the electionproblems at the county supervisors’ regular meeting.
Numerous speakers, including those from the Carlsbad group SaveDemocracy, restated their criticisms and concerns about electronicvoting — that the systems are inherently untrustworthy, couldpossibly be rigged to manipulate elections, and offer no reliabletracking of votes without printouts of cast ballots.
The American Civil Liberties Union and others called on thecounty to have an independent investigator study the voting systemproblems rather than county managers.
“Lets get some transparency and legitimacy back into San Diego’svoting processes,” said Pamela Smith of Save Democracy.
However, several speakers, including of the disabledcommunity, praised the electronic voting machines and said theywere easier to use the punch-card systems the county used fordecades.
“I can’t set my digital clock, can’t turn on my daughter’scomputer, can’t program the VCR and I can barely work my cellphone,” said Joy Fleming, a soft-spoken, 76-year-old black womanfrom San Diego. “I’m not partial to new technology. But I’m here totell you that I voted and I loved it.”
Others said they liked the systems, but that poll workers neededto be better trained so they could respond to computer problemswhen they occurred in the field.
But the most provocative statements came from Carrel, whoblasted county elections officers, and Diebold Systems Inc., theOhio-based company that built the 10,200 machines San Diego Countybought in December for $31 million.
Carrel said Diebold continually dragged its feet when told itneeded federal testing done on the smart-card programming machines.He said state officials finally told Diebold on Feb. 13 that theywould not certify the machines. Diebold Chief Executive Officer BobUrosevich said the company made its equipment available for testingas soon as it was told it was needed, but left quickly after themeeting and dodged further questions.
Carrel said the state quickly tested and conditionally blessedthe machines when San Diego and other counties that were alsoswitching to Diebold electronic voting systems threatened to usethe machines anyway when told they would not be certified.
“We got the sky is falling from several counties,” Carrel saidafter the meeting.
Carrel said the secretary of state’s office never went publicwith its unhappiness about certifying the equipment because thediscussions were private, and there was “no public event,” thatoffered the state a chance to air its views.
Carrel bristled when county supervisors asked the secretary ofstate’s office to offer them to give them a timeline on when themachines — which were only certified for the March 2 election –would be approved or rejected for November’s presidentialelection.
“I can’t control what the vendor (Diebold) does. I can’t controlwhat the federal authorities do,” Carrel said.
staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or[email protected].
