After the 2000 presidential election, when those discredited punch card machines were tossed out, resulting in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and new voting equipment.
Now, the newer machines are starting to wear out.
Election officials are trying to figure out what to do before there's another big voting disaster and vendors have lined up to help.
During their annual meeting in Washington, D.C., this week, state election officials previewed the latest voting equipment.
Kathy Rogers, a senior vice president at ES&S who used to run elections for the state of Georgia, says companies have to be more flexible than they were 10 or so years ago. Both the technology and how people vote is changing rapidly.
"Some are moving to all vote by mail; some are increasingly becoming early vote sites," she said. "We have some that have moved as far away from direct record electronics as they possibly can, and then we have others who love that technology."
We use their optical scanning voting systems in New York City.
Some states including Maryland are scrapping touchscreen voting machines in favor of paper-backed equipment, because of security concerns. But in a sign of the times, Maryland is leasing its new equipment from ES&S, instead of buying, just in case something better comes along in a few years.
The big problem is figuring out who's going to pay for all these new machines. After the 2000 elections, Congress gave states $3 billion, but no one expects that to happen again. State and local governments will have to figure out what to do, and soon.
Vendors say they're well aware that there's a tough sell ahead, that people are searching for something that's easy to use and accurate, but also cheap.
Election officials, at this conference, were still just kicking the tires.
I think we need an national independent professional voting operation using one voting system.
For a voting system, I would use Louisiana's, no primaries, just a general election ballot with all candidates and all voters getting one ballot, with Rank-Choice voting. Then a separate ballot for party official elections with only party members voting.
How would you run an election?
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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