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| Michigan Greens Support Advanced Voting Methods. |
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Green Party of Michigan News Release June 22, 2003 Members of State Election Plan Committee, Public Commenters Also Support Changes in Draft Plan -- Call for Flexible, Capable, Accessible Equipment and Voting Processes Vendor Rep Admits "Much, Much Less Expensive" to Enable IRV on New Voting Machines; Elections Bureau Head Thomas Tacitly Concedes Legality of Preferential Balloting. On Friday, Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) 2002 Secretary of State candidate Ray Ziarno repeated his call for a state government committee to require that voting equipment purchased using new Federal funds be capable of handling advanced voting methods such as instant-runoff voting (IRV). Ziarno also got a representative of one of the major voting- equipment manufacturers to admit that adding this capability on new equipment would be "much, much less expensive" than upgrading all old machines. Joining Ziarno in commenting at the meeting, GPMI Elections Coordinator John Anthony La Pietra compared inflexible voting machines to cars without air conditioning -- neither being suitable for "the heat of Florida" -- and presented citations from Michigan law demonstrating that IRV is already legal in the state. After the meeting, Ziarno and La Pietra talked with committee member Simone Lightfoot of the NAACP about supplementing the Department's minimal efforts to publicize the release of the preliminary plan, and making sure people know they have until July 17 to send in their comments and ask for changes in the plan before it is sent to Washington. For the second time in as many weeks, Ziarno stood up as Elections Bureau chief Christopher Thomas appeared ready to adjourn a meeting of Michigan's "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA) State Plan Advisory Committee without the announced public-comment period. This time, several committee members raised questions and alternatives to the views expressed by Thomas, and that helped fill the two hours scheduled for the meeting. After Ziarno forced open a comment period, other commentators kept the meeting going for another half-hour supporting flexibility and capability. The first topic on the agenda was coming up with a recommendation for a uniform voting system, as provided in a state law passed last year when HAVA was being debated in Congress. Thomas admitted his own preference for adopting optical-scan voting with precinct-based counting statewide, and gave the committee a cost estimate for making that type of equipment the statewide standard. However, the estimate omitted some expenses, such as replacing equipment for places not using optical-scan technology, and did not attempt to calculate a multi-year life-cycle cost including operating expenses. Committee member and Oakland County Clerk G. William Caddell told of seeing the main alternative technology, digital-recording electronic (DRE) machines, in use in Florida and Texas. He was impressed by the fact that both seniors and precinct workers clearly found it easier to use. If it was necessary to stick to only one type of equipment rather than a mix of technologies, he concluded, DRE was the best at meeting specific needs. Besides, he added, not needing ballots printed could save his county half a million dollars a year. But ultimately, he concluded, "dollars aren't important -- systems are. We must get a system that makes it as easy as possible to vote -- and to have votes tabulated." Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie took up one of Caddell's themes -- early voting -- and suggested bringing equipment to public places such as malls and senior homes. Caddell agreed that such "curbside voting" might help hold down the need for more new machines, by expanding the capacity of each machine to serve more voters over more time. Farmington Hills City Clerk Kathryn Dornan said her city's current optical-scan equipment, pioneering in its day, is "clunky -- but it works . . . [and] seniors embrace it . . . I think they like the piece of paper." Still, Dornan agreed with Caddell that "we need to focus on the future -- and we need a well-rounded vision of that future." NAACP representative Simone Lightfoot expressed concern about Thomas's sometimes dismissive attitude toward comments -- from the public and from committee members, "the people on the front lines" in elections. Lightfoot was especially interested in ID requirements (misinterpreted by Thomas last week), and disappointed that Michigan's preliminary plan was "like other states' bare-bones plans . . . I was hoping we could expand on the minimums." When Thomas told her there was really no action to be taken on the plan at that time, and offered to meet with her after the meeting to point out where the plan had accommodated her concerns, Lightfoot responded that "some things need to be public and on the record." During public comments, one of the many advocates for people with disabilities agreed with Lightfoot that the intent of the law was inclusiveness. Thomas tried to steer the discussion back towards the prepared position. He invited representatives of three major voting-machine companies present at the meeting to discuss problems with mixing two technologies in one jurisdiction. Ziarno stood up to ask the vendor representatives about the cost of implementing advanced-voting capability on new voting machines. Thomas tried to shift the focus to the relatively costly case of San Francisco, which is implementing IRV at very short notice on older equipment. But the Election Systems & Software representative, Dick Fox, admitted that new equipment would be "much, much less expensive". All three vendors agreed that more DREs were being sold these days than optical-scan machines -- which suggests they might have longer useful lives, might not become obsolete as soon. When La Pietra rose to speak, he offered a parable: "Which of us, if we're going to buy a car and drive down to Florida, would pick a car without air conditioning?" He reminded the committee that Michigan law gives home-rule cities and villages the right to use preferential voting methods such as instant-runoff voting if they want. Limiting localities to equipment which hindered them in exercising that legal right, he cautioned, could mean "facing the heat of a Florida." (In IRV, voters can indicate not only their first choice for an office, but also their second choice -- and as many more choices as there are candidates they support. If no candidate gets over 50% of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is out and votes for that candidate are distributed to those voters' next choices . . . and so on until someone has a majority. In this way, IRV guarantees a consensus choice. It also lets more people express more of their preferences, and get more of what they want out of an election -- and it avoids spending tax money on a second round of elections.) The right to use IRV in elections was confirmed by a 1975 state Circuit Court decision upholding the election of Al Wheeler as Ann Arbor's first African American mayor. Thomas had claimed at last week's meeting that the Legislature would have to approve IRV before machines that could handle it could be bought; however, he did not dispute La Pietra's statement, as he had used the privilege of the chair to oppose the positions declared by some of the committee members. In the end, the committee reached no decision about a recommendation for a uniform voting system -- either a specific technology or a set of performance standards and capability specifications. No plans have yet been announced for another meeting before the 30-day public-comment period ends on July 17, and the plan is forwarded to Washington. La Pietra, who lives in Marshall, has kicked off an effort to give the public more information about the preliminary plan. "The Secretary of State's Office has the plan on its Web site, and sent copies to the county clerks -- but it hasn't reached the media as far as we can tell. I've given copies of the plan to Marshall's deputy clerk for elections and the district library. We're going to get the word out. We're going to keep making sure *all* the people have a fair chance to be heard." Green Party of Michigan *
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