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Susan Greenhalgh, Common Cause, segreenhalgh@gmail.com, (917)-796-8782

Mary Boyle, Common Cause, mboyle@commoncause.org, (202) 736-5770

Voting machine preparation “needs improvement,” but changes can be made by Nov. 6

WASHINGTON – A lack of effective voter protection measures places South Carolina near the bottom of a ranking of states based upon its preparedness to successfully manage voting machine failures on Election Day, a new, national voting report finds.

The report, “Counting Votes 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness,” was released Wednesday by three non-partisan organizations focused on voting – the Verified Voting Foundation, the Rutgers Law School Constitutional Litigation Clinic, and Common Cause. Despite South Carolina’s low rating, the report emphasizes that election officials still have time to make changes in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 election.

“After thorny technology issues in recent elections, South Carolina is on the cusp of transitioning into a more resilient voting system. In the meantime, there are actions that can be taken to prepare for the upcoming election,” said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting. “For example, we recommend an update to the current rules that restrict the quantity of emergency ballots at the polling place to ten percent of registered voters or less. Past experience, and the age of the current voting systems, would indicate more emergency ballots may be needed on Election Day to ensure voters are not disenfranchised.”

South Carolina can improve its election procedures before Nov. 6 by doing things like: upgrading its ballot accounting and reconciliation practices, which would be able to catch any machine errors; encouraging overseas and military voters to cast ballots by mail even if they have the option to vote via e-mail or fax; and ensuring that comprehensive contingency plans are in place (re-enforcing best practices from the secretary of state on down, for example).

Many states have neglected to address or prepare for voting machine malfunction, and in every national election in the past decade, voting systems have failed. In 2008 – the last presidential election year – more than 1,800 problems were reported nationally.

„Wenn die Geschichte ein Indikator ist, werden in den USA im November die Maschinen ausfallen und Stimmen verloren gehen“, sagte Susannah Goodman von Common Cause. „Es müssen Backup-Systeme wie Papierwahlzettel, Audits und gute Verfahren zur Stimmzettelabstimmung eingeführt werden, um sicherzustellen, dass die Ergebnisse korrekt sind.“

South Carolina received an overall rating of “Needs Improvement” based on its performance in five areas:

– Does the state require paper ballots or records of every vote cast? (When computer failures or human errors cause machine miscounts, election officials can use the original ballots to determine correct totals. Additionally, paper ballots can be used to audit machine counts.)

– Does the state have adequate contingency plans at each polling place in the event of machine failure?

– Does the state protect military and overseas voters and their ballots from alteration, manipulation and privacy violations by ensuring that marked ballots are not cast online?

– Has the state instituted a post-election audit to determine whether the electronically reported results are correct?

– Does the state use robust ballot reconciliation and tabulation practices to help ensure that no ballots are lost or added as votes are tallied and aggregated from the local to state level?

In addition to South Carolina, five other states were ranked near the bottom of the list – Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi – while five states were ranked near the top – Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin.

“No vote should be lost in 2012,” said Penny Venetis, co-director of the Rutgers Law School Constitutional Litigation Clinic. “Technology exists to verify votes, and procedures could be in place around the country to make sure that every vote is counted, as the constitution requires.”

Election Day is more than three months away, and that leaves time for states like South Carolina to make simple changes in some of the categories ranked by the study.