Tech glitches slow vote count

Fairfax County officials said it was the slowest election count in recent memory.

It took 21 hours after the polls closed Nov. 4 for all 225 precincts in the county to file their final election results — even though officials spent $3.5 million for new wireless voting machines designed to make the process simpler and faster.

In the aftermath, Republicans and Democrats alike criticized the high-tech machines. One Republican candidate claimed the machines could have cost her the election by subtracting votes from her. Republicans also filed a legal challenge on Election Day claiming other voting irregularities.

The WINvote (Wireless Information Network) machines were an attempt by Virginia’s most populous county to update its voting system to comply with the Help America Vote Act, which provides federal funding to counties that modernize voting equipment before the 2004 presidential primary.

Fairfax’s problems were just the latest snag for voting equipment vendors around the country.

California’s secretary of state suspended the adoption of new touch screens about two weeks ago and began an investigation into uncertified software used by voting equipment giant Diebold Inc.

Computer programmers have been warning elections officials for more than a year that electronic systems could be vulnerable to hackers and software bugs.

“The procedures were very poorly thought-out for these machines. They seemed to have a lot of technological flaws,” said the Fairfax Republicans’ attorney, Christopher T. Craig, who argued that the removal of 10 machines for repairs on Election Day violated state law.

“You don’t want technology to outrun credibility and ballot integrity.”

The WINvote machines, developed by Advanced Voting Systems of Frisco, Texas, first appeared in a local Mississippi election in 2001. The 9-pound machines resemble laptop computers, with the names of candidates and instructions displayed on 15-inch color screens.

To make a selection, voters simply touch a candidate’s name on-screen and an “X” appears. At the end of the process, a checklist ensures voters’ selections are correct. Local precincts send the results by modem to a central database for tabulation.

“This voting system has more functionality than any system in the marketplace,” Advanced Voting Systems President and Chief Executive Officer Howard Van Pelt said by telephone. “We asked every voter we could see [in Fairfax] and every poll worker, and they all loved it.”

But Mr. Van Pelt was quick to acknowledge that no system is perfect.

“We like to think we won’t have any problems, but we do,” he said.

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