By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | Just how voters cast ballots in 2020 will depend on the next few months, but one thing is certain: there will be a paper record of some kind.
There’s a rush to get new machines before the 2020 presidential primaries next February.
“Our system is old. It’s not going to keep working forever and elections are too important to wait for the system to fail,” state Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire told Statehouse Report. “The standard today is to have a paper record of every ballot cast.”
The state Election Commission is currently taking bids from companies expected to come up with a new statewide system that has a paper feature. The state Election Commission says it will implement the new system before the 2020 presidential primaries where South Carolina has emerged as a key state for the crowded Democratic field.
Meanwhile at the Statehouse, House budget writers are poised to cut a check to the commission for tens of millions of dollars as lawmakers weigh six bills (see at end of story) that would direct the type of systems that the state can purchase.
Further complicating the purchase, there’s also a controversy brewing.
Advocates such as Lynn S. Teague of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina have raised concerns over alleged ties by Marci Andino, the commission’s executive director, to the state’s current system’s vendor, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S). Andino serves on a panel of elections directors with the company, and is given plane fare and hotel stays for her participation.
Whitmire said he would question a state election director that didn’t serve on such a panel, which he said helps to provide insight into the system. He told Statehouse Report: “The implication that our decision or our direction on how to move forward would be affected by a plane ticket and a hotel room to learn about our voting system is doubly insulting.”
Current system is a mess, League says
The challenge with today’s voting machines isn’t just that the system is old, good governance advocates say. They say the current system is buggy and prone to hacking. And they worry the Election Commission will go with a system that has an unnecessary steep price tag and will remain worrisome even with new machines.
As vice president for issues and action for the League of Women Voters of South Carolina,Teague said the state needs public hearings on whatever system goes into effect. But that’s a process that won’t happen with a bid purchase through the Election Commission, Whitmire said.
South Carolina’s voting machine challenges date to the days after the 2000 presidential elections when “hanging chads” became a buzzphrase for ballot-counting dysfunction in Florida. A few states, including South Carolina, went with a paperless ballot system in an effort to eliminate voter-caused issues such as over-voting or incomplete voting.
But a report of the November 2018 election by the League found “major flaws” in mistabulated votes or unrecorded votes in South Carolina on the current system.
Advocates also say the lack of a paper trail makes the state prone to election hacking and system errors. However, a federal judge recently tossed a lawsuit this month that claimed the state’s machines risked voters’ constitutional right to vote.
Whitmire defended South Carolina’s current machines as having fulfilled their purpose without too many glitches and zero hacking. He agreed it was time to replace them, but said the system has been reliable during its service.
The potential solutions
Whitmire said the commision’s request-for-proposals seeks four elements: a paper record of every vote, security, certification by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission and the ability for voters with disabilities to vote without assistance.
The requirement for a paper record leaves the state with two solutions:
- A ballot-marking device system that has tabulation machines, similar to the current system through which voters make selections on a computer; the machine then prints a ballot that the voter can review before submittal; or,
- A paper ballot system where voters receive printed ballots at their polling place and then mark those ballots in a privacy booth; the paper ballot is then fed into an optical scanner.
Whitmire said the benefit of the ballot-marking system is that there are no stray marks, no over-voting and no missed votes from the voter, he said. It is also easier for voters with disabilities to use this system, he added.
But the system also comes with a hefty price tag. Whitmire said commission has estimated it could be up to $60 million in upfront costs, though the agency expects to spend less over the lifetime of the system.
In the hand-marked ballot system, if the ballot is invalid due to stray marks or over-voting, then a voter will have the opportunity to correct the issue, Whitmire said. But the drawback to this system is the amount of paper used. He said every polling location would need to print 110 percent of its voters’ ballots, even in primaries where fewer than 20 percent of registered voters show up
Teague and other election advocates say the ballot-marking system is not ideal, and are pushing for hand-marked paper. She called the ballot-marking devices “unnecessarily complex” that don’t allow flexibility at the polls, which would only have a set number of devices and be unable to simply erect more privacy booths to accommodate a high influx of voters. Teague said this system is not only cheaper — probably closer to $25 million to implement statewide — but it also cheaper to maintain, even with the extra paper.
That’s something that will be evaluated in the bids, which close March 4. An evaluation panel will be selected by the S.C. Fiscal Accountability Authority from a list of state and county election officials. That panel will weigh the upfront and long-term costs, Whitmire said.
“We want a fair competitive process,” he said. “We’re going to evaluate both types of systems … We don’t know what the cost will be.”
The purse strings
The argument over machines may end up inside the annual budget debate. As the House Ways and Means Committee looks at the commission’s $60 million request for new voting machines, what type of machine used could be decided via proviso, Chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, told Statehouse Report.
“Those questions have to be answered (on the type of system) and I imagine you’ll see an attempt by some to answer that via proviso,” he said. An initial proviso discussion for Ways and Means is slated for 11 a.m. Feb. 19 in room 521 of the Blatt building.
Smith also said he expects the budget to authorize something close to the $60 million request from the commission, but if they spend less than that, the money will go back into state coffers. Already, the commission has $10 million set aside for the purchase, he said.
“I’m not interested in debating what types of machines we have … we just need to make sure we have the money available so we can have these ready for the 2020 elections,” he said.
Teague said she wants more involvement from lawmakers so the public can have the option to weigh in. So far, only one voting system bill has been heard in subcommittee, S. 183. None of the six bills has been heard yet by a full committee.
“This is a decision that should be made by the General Assembly very publicly,” Teague said. “There is the question of the General Assembly would make a decision it would alter that (bid process by the SEC) … but even if it came down to a complete train wreck in May, a late decision from the General Assembly on what they would fund, there would still be time to fix that before the 2020 election.”
Bills currently under consideration
- Paper-based. H. 3304 (Alexander): All voting machines used in the state shall use a nonproprietary, publicly owned paper-based system.
- Optical scanners. H. 3616 (Finlay): All voting systems used in the state shall use a paper-based system using paper ballots that are then tabulated by optical scanners.
- Review. S. 140 (Scott): The General Assembly must review and approve any plan to purchase election machines, and new voting machines must provide a paper record of each vote cast.
- Paper trail. S. 183 (McElveen): The Department of Administration will be given funds to purchase electronic voting machines that produce a paper audit trail; similar to H. 3302 (Bernstein).
- Paper trail. H. 3043 (Bernstein): Ballots must be cast on voting machines that provide a voter-verified paper audit trail.
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
I have seen this play before in SC and know how it ends. Haste makes waste.