Voting machines pass key tests

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Election officials say electronic voting machines have been tested for security and accuracy, despite critics' accusations that the computers can be hacked and results rigged.

"We have an extraordinary level of confidence," said Mike Morrill, spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, which manufacturers the touch-screen voting machines used throughout Maryland. "They've proven accurate and reliable, and that's exactly what we expect in this November's election across the country."

Howard T. Van Pelt, president and chief executive officer of Advanced Voting Solutions Inc., likewise said the voting machines it supplied to Fairfax and Arlington counties and nearly three dozen other Virginia jurisdictions have passed all pre-election tests.

"The equipment has all been checked and is all ready to go," Mr. Van Pelt said.

The 2004 elections were plagued by reports of malfunctioning machines or votes cast for the wrong candidate. During Maryland's Sept. 12 primaries, machines in Montgomery County could not be operated because poll workers forgot to bring ballot cards.

"Some people blame problems on electronic voting when it's really not. It's just human error," said David Orr, a Democrat and clerk of Cook County, Ill., who conducts elections in Chicago's suburbs. "Any honest election person will tell you mistakes happen."

Beverly Kaufman, chairman of the Election Administration Board of the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks -- the organization of elected officials who conduct U.S. elections -- said federal law requires that security systems be built into the machines.

"There are perceived problems. But if there's a problem, it's not a machine problem; it's a human problem," said Mrs. Kaufman, a Republican and Harris County clerk in Houston.

Elections will be held in more than 3,000 counties using various types of voting machines. Most widely used are the touch screens, which resemble automated teller machines, and the optical-scan devices, which read and tabulate paper ballots.

The four companies that make the majority of machines used in U.S. elections are Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, Election Systems & Software, and Hart InterCivic.