A proposed bill allowing residents to cast early "walk-in absentee" ballots without having to give a reason has lately caused some public confusion and once again revived the debate over voting by paper ballot.
The issue of paper balloting has been a running complaint among smaller pockets within the community but recently hit a high note with former Sen. Adelbert Bryan’s lawsuit against the V.I. Elections System.
Bryan, who lost in both the federal and local courts, charged that the electronic voting machines have a "record" of inaccurately recording the votes and that provisional ballots — which can be used in lieu of a machine by voters who meet a specific list of criteria — are counted by a joint Board of Elections that is "rife with conflicts of interest."
Bryan’s campaign set off a small series of incidents at the polls during last month’s primary, including one reported incident where an Elections judge was assaulted, which was allegedly reported to a national news network by a former St. Croix government official. The report has been confirmed by a few of the Elections board members, who have quietly explained their issues with the paper balloting system — namely, that it could, in a population with high illiteracy rates, cause a jump in spoiled ballots.
The dust settled after the election but was recently stirred up again with a proposal from Sen. Craig W. Barshinger to allow for paper ballot voting five days prior to an election, starting with the upcoming general election.
According to Barshinger, these walk-in absentee ballots, as they’re called, are already allowed under the system, but residents are required to pick one of nine reasons — such as travel or religious conflicts — in order to get out of voting on the regular machine.
Various media reports, however, have recently linked the bill to another Senate proposal that would allow for both paper ballot and electronic voting at the polls, which Barshinger said is irrelevant.
"This is a response bill because people were really upset about their options in general," he said Thursday. "Logistically, we’ve been told that we can’t do paper ballots in the amount of time remaining before the General Election, but there is time to allow residents to vote early. And the advantage is that people won’t have to stand in line — they just sit down, fill out their ballot and they’ll be counted after the election is over."
The effort has been backed by a number of other senators, who have said there’s a difference between what’s provided for in the bill — which gives residents the option of voting early by paper ballot in the "security" of the Elections offices, under the supervision of trained officials — and offering up paper ballots at the polls.
"The whole reason we moved to electronic systems is because there were significant problems with the idea of paper ballots," said Senate President Louis P. Hill, who was among a group of senators who sat down recently with Elections officials and the attorney general to discuss the Bryan case and other issues related to the upcoming General Election.
"If you look at countries that still have paper ballots, you hear that there are always problems with fraud and abuse of the system," he explained. "An electronic system is more reliable and less likely to be manipulated."
Hill’s comments hit upon the heart of the paper ballot debate, where a now-growing number of residents have complained that the machines currently being used by Elections are vulnerable and open to attack by hackers and the like.
Opting not to take a side either way, Elections Supervisor John Abramson — who was named in Bryan’s recent suit — explained the ins and outs of the current system, touching on everything from the security of the machines to more far-reaching issues, such as the current lack of standards (both nationally and locally) for voting machines and their certification.
Machines used in the territory were bought in the mid-1980s, which makes them more secure than the more modern machines being touted at the national level, Abramson said. And that’s because the federal body charged with creating a nationwide standard for all voting machines is, in 2010, operating on a set of guidelines from 2007 that have still yet to be formalized, he explained.
Abramson serves as the parliamentarian for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which, upon its creation in 2002, issued what’s called a third "iteration," or set, of voting system guidelines developed in accordance with the federal Help America Vote Act. Those guidelines were adopted in 2005, but rewritten in 2007 by one of EAC’s advisory committees.
"The guidelines contain new and expanded material in the areas of reliability and quality, usability and accessibility, security and testing," according to a fact sheet on the EAC’s website (http://www.eac.gov/testing_and_certification/voluntary_voting_system_guidelines.aspx). "Additionally, the…draft recommends open ended vulnerability testing, a testing method designed to bring greater security to voting systems in the polling place."
It sounds good on paper, and Abramson said that’s what the EAC is currently working toward. But the problem is, it’s not there yet, leaving, in essence, much of the nation vulnerable with its lack of up-to-date standards.
"There’s not a manufacturer in the country that’s going to develop a machine that meets the current certification guidelines — and that’s because they don’t exist," Abramson said.
The territory’s situation is a little more unusual, however, and that’s simply because the machines — which Abramson said do meet the 2002 certification standards — being used by the Elections System don’t hook up to the Internet.
"There are no points of entry, no portal," Abramson explained. "And if you want to connect a monitor or jump drive, you have to have a portal. We now have a much more secure system by default, because of the age of the machines."
The system also requires a pass code, which, according to a licensing agreement with the V.I. Elections System, stays with the manufacturer. Other machines being used nationwide may have touch screens and a wireless Internet hook up, but they also "open themselves up to great vulnerability," Abramson said.
Interestingly, there is one point in the whole paper ballot debate upon which there is consensus. Organizers of the paper ballot campaign have offered up one possible alternative: installing new machines that print out receipts showing how someone voted. Similar machines have become the standard in some areas on the mainland, such as California, where, according to news wire reports, the receipts are kept at voting precincts and used to verify elections if challenges come up.
"There’s too much distrust by the public of these voting machines," Clarence Payne, one of the lead organizers in the local push for paper ballots, said Thursday. He said that residents are looking for "some level of accountability" that could be fulfilled with a receipt.
"And that way, if something happens, we can gather the receipts and do a tally — everyone would be sure their votes were recorded properly," Payne said, adding that he’s sure residents would make sure to keep the extra paper if they knew it "protected their rights."
Hill and Barshinger both said they supported such a system, and Abramson also spoke about its merits, but pointed out one fatal flaw: cost, which currently adds up to about $8,000 per machine.
"We do need to start considering buying new machines," he said. "But if we’re talking about 150 machines per district — that’s close to $3 million," he said. "We’re cash strapped. Where exactly are we going to get that right now?"
