Compatible
technology is prerequisite to reform progress

The need for better voting
methods has been thoroughly stated in the educational work of FairVote
Minnesota.  What is becoming
more fully understood is the importance of getting voting machine technology
in place that can process and count ballots cast using alternatives to
First-Past-The-Post plurality elections.  Fortunately,
this is a time of opportunity for election reformers to work with their
state and local governments to obtain this technology.

Before voters or their representatives
can be persuaded to adopt an advanced voting system, they need to be
confident that the system can be implemented.  In fact, city charter amendment efforts around the country
have sometimes won or lost on this point.  In
order to use an advanced voting method, a community must have compatible
voting technology in place.

Since the 2000 presidential
election, considerable attention has been given to improving election
administration in the United States, including upgrading voting machine
technology.  A federal judge
in Los Angeles ruled in February that nine California counties must replace
their punch-card voting equipment before the next presidential election.  This
decision came in a lawsuit brought under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution,
alleging unequal protection for voters, with implications for voting
jurisdictions across the country.  Minnesota,
though no longer using punch cards, still has a mish mash of precinct-based
and centralized optical scanners as well as manually counted paper ballots.  Voters with precinct-based scanners have protection of error-correcting
capacity that voters with other systems don't have.

Legislation in Congress would
provide funding to states to purchase precinct-based electronic voting
machines.  A Minnesota law
from the 2001 special session created an account to receive any federal
funds which may become available and, in turn, provide matching grants
to local governments to purchase machines.  (The
state also appropriated $1.9 million to the account.  However,
due to the state's budget crisis, the status of these funds is in doubt.)

Heightened interest in upgrading
voting technology suggests increased demand.  However,
the prospect of receiving federal funds has caused local governments
to delay purchasing decisions.  Anecdotal
information from voting equipment vendors says that sales are down because
purchasing decisions are being put off.

This delay gives reform advocates
an opportunity to make sure any machines purchased are compatible with
Instant Runoff Voting and other advanced alternative systems.  One of the big obstacles to public adoption of advanced voting
methods (including Instant Runoff Voting and various forms of proportional
representation) is that the voting machine technology to support those
elections has not been distributed to Minnesota communities.  Even
communities that have recently purchased the latest precinct-based optical
scanners may not have the essential components installed unless the community
asked for those features.

What makes
a voting machine compatible?

In order to be used with
Instant Runoff Voting, a voting machine must be able to record all the
voting information on each ballot.  In
more technical terms, the machine must capture the ballot image, not
merely tally the total votes cast for each candidate.  Many
optical scanners in Minnesota could be retrofitted with the ballot image
capturing firmware at some cost if they do not already have it.  But
it is crucial that newly purchased equipment have the firmware installed,
a feature that may be available at little or even no extra cost if ordered
at the time of purchase.

Besides its usefulness for
tabulating the votes in an alternative election system, ballot image
capturing capability in optical scanners has another function in the
post-Florida era:  It creates
an audit trail to accompany the paper ballots in the event of a recount.  Paper
ballots can be altered either intentionally or simply by handling after
the ballot is cast.  Capturing
the ballot image would add to the security of the election by recording
what the state of the ballot was when it was cast.  This
may be persuasive in making the case for obtaining ballot image capturing
capability regardless of which voting method is used.

What can
be done to get compatible voting machines?

For a variety of reasons,
federal support is unlikely to come anytime soon.  That
means the best opportunities for action are found at the state and local
level.

The Minnesota Secretary of
State is charged with certifying electronic voting machines for their
compliance with Minnesota law before they are offered for sale to local
governments.  FairVote Minnesota
supports a change in state law requiring that all new electronic voting
machines be ready to support all four ballot types used in the United
States, including ranked ballots and cumulative vote ballots as well
as the common "vote-for-one" and "vote-for-up-to-X" ballot types.

A growing list of civil rights,
voting rights, and election policy organizations supports expanding the
flexibility of voting equipment in this way.  Along
with the more common requirements of catching over-vote errors to allow
voters to correct their ballots and assuring accessibility for people
with disabilities, a variety of recognized organizations now calls for
adding the capacity to handle all ballot types.

Active citizens may have
the most influence on the actions of their local governments, the units
that decide which voting machines to buy and what features those machines
will include.  Local governments
can adopt a policy that all new electronic voting equipment have ballot
image capturing capability to provide an electronic audit trail and to
handle all ballot types used in the United States, including ranked ballots
and cumulative ballots.  These
requirements can be stated in local government Requests For Proposals
from election equipment vendors.

Putting
compatible voting equipment in place will remove one of the main obstacles
to adopting Instant Runoff Voting and other advanced alternative voting
systems.