Many skeptical on vote counting

By Dan Smith - Bee Capitol Bureau Chief

Last Updated 12:22 am PDT Thursday, August 23, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A4

Less than half of California's most avid voters have a great deal of confidence that their votes are being counted accurately, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday.

Moreover, the survey found that virtually identical proportions of voters prefer each of three systems -- paper ballots read by optical scanners, electronic touch-screen machines, and punch-card systems no longer in use.

Field's pollsters posed the questions to likely voters Aug. 3-12, just as California's voting security was publicly shaken. A panel of experts condemned touch-screen machines, and Secretary of State Debra Bowen restricted their use in most of California.

But the poll provides a first look at how Californians feel about their voting systems: Neither Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo nor Bowen is aware of any previous state survey on the issue.

The poll, DiCamillo said, will provide a baseline that in the future could determine how effective Bowen and others are in building confidence in voting systems.

Forty-four percent said they had a "great deal of confidence" in accurate counts, while 41 percent said they had "some confidence." Eleven percent had only "a little" confidence and 3 percent had no confidence.

Bowen said she was surprised and unhappy that so few had a great deal of confidence in what is considered the basic act of democracy.

"My goal is to have us close to 100 percent of voters having great confidence that their votes are being counted accurately, not less than half that many," she said.

There was no clearly preferred voting system among poll respondents.

About a third favored each of the three systems, even though touch screens have received the bulk of public criticism and punch cards were phased out after the hanging chad dispute of the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

"It's somewhat surprising to me," DiCamillo said. "We expected to see a little (less) confidence in the touch-screen machines because of the controversy swirling around."

He noted that only a fifth of the group of poll respondents who had the least amount of confidence overall preferred touch- screen machines.

For Bowen, the divided preferences reflect a huge problem -- "a lack of transparency" in all of the voting systems.

"When a voter goes into the voting booth, there's no obvious way to observe the rest of the process," she said.

About the writer:

The Bee's Dan Smith can be reached at (916) 321-5249 or smith@sacbee.com.

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Many skeptical on vote counting

By Dan Smith - Bee Capitol Bureau Chief

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