Voter-database doubts

Some officials say system, two years late, still isn't ready

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 26, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Photo by Linda McConnell / Special to the Rocky

Trainer Sarah Garland answers questions Thursday at Adams County's election office about a voter database designed by her company, Saber Corp.

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Colorado is about to undergo a dramatic transition in elections that isn't just about shifting from electronic to paper voting.

Colorado also is moving to a new - and unfinished - statewide voter registration database.

The system is more than two years late due to problems with the first software company.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman and his staff insist that the database will perform well no matter how voters cast ballots in the August primary and November general elections.

But many lawmakers, clerks and election watchdog groups don't share that confidence and want to limit use of the computer system as much as possible for elections that are expected to draw record turnout.

They point to Colorado's poor history with state computer systems and the disaster of Denver's 2006 elections, when the county's new electronic pollbook crashed, causing up to 20,000 voters to leave lines and not vote. And there were glitches with a pilot rollout of the new state database last November.

"I have very serious concerns that it will not be ready," said Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Colorado Common Cause. "We had some testing in the fall where there were problems, and that was with nine counties and we have 64 counties in the state.

"Our voter database is really the gatekeeper in terms of how people participate in our elections. . . . There's so many pieces that are critical. We're just pushing the deadline to the extreme."

Election officials wary

The database, called SCORE (State of Colorado Registration and Election) system, is being designed by Saber Corp., an Oregon company now owned by EDS, the firm that created the problem-plagued state welfare benefits system called CBMS.

According to its $9.7 million contract signed in 2006, Saber must deliver a complete product by May.

So far, 17 counties are using the system, and the rest will be trained and added in the next three months, said Trevor Timmons, SCORE project director and the secretary of state's chief information officer. He said SCORE is on track to reach full performance capacity in April.

But many counties still are using their county databases and planning to use backup systems during coming elections.

And few county clerks are confident enough with SCORE to endorse using it in polling place or vote center elections this year.

After talking with nearly all the clerks recently, Coffman said in a letter that the majority of them don't want to use SCORE in polling place elections this year, in part because of the risk of the system crashing on Election Day. Most said they are comfortable using SCORE in a mail election because it would be used in a limited manner.

On Wednesday, Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative leaders announced a plan to have voters statewide cast paper ballots at polling sites. That proposal is expected to be introduced in the legislature next week.

Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, is the prime sponsor.

He has a personal reason for caring about the new system. Gordon says he might have won his bid to become secretary of state if Denver's electronic poll book hadn't crashed in November 2006.

"I might be more worried about (SCORE) than any other single human being," he said. "I lost an election in 2006 partly because of the electronic poll book malfunctioning in Denver. I was getting 71 percent of the votes in Denver."

Gordon said he wants counties to use paper pollbooks at precincts to limit the number of election workers across the state who need to access SCORE in real time on election day.

But clerks say the paper/precinct plan still puts a lot of pressure on the database. Election officials statewide would need live access to the system during early voting and for vote centers on Election Day.

Gordon said he hopes the statewide system will work, "But you never know."

Timmons said he knows the system will work. "I do feel confident that the SCORE system will support elections in Colorado regardless of the method of voting," he said.

He acknowledged that the state doesn't have a stellar record with large computer systems. But he said that doesn't mean SCORE is bound to fail.

"Saber delivered a statewide system in six states across the country before they ever started in Colorado."

System failure

On Nov. 6, about a dozen election workers were processing mail ballots on the SCORE system in Larimer County when they encountered a problem. It was 6:30 p.m. About 40,000 voters had mailed ballots for the low-turnout election.

Within about two minutes, workers all got error messages on their computer screens and lost connection to the database, said Cynthia Coleman, the county election operations manager.

They called the help desk and were told to log off. About 20 minutes later, the workers were able to get back on the system. If such a failure had happened during a polling place election, "It would be a nightmare of epic proportions," she said.

Larimer County Clerk Scott Doyle said he doesn't know if SCORE can handle polling place elections.

"When you're still developing the other pieces for a polling place election of this magnitude, you cannot be in development," he said. "Because what happens with developing a software system, you fix one thing and you accidently break something else."

Timmons said Larimer County wasn't the only place affected by last November's glitch. Two workers in El Paso County and one in Alamosa County also temporarily lost connection to the database. It was caused by a programming error. The Saber programmers had set the parameters to only allow 100 users at a time, which wasn't enough, he said.

Timmons said the problem was preventable, and programmers fixed it later that night.

Next Florida?

During last November's election, seven counties used SCORE to process about 800,000 votes, mostly cast by mail. Two counties - Gilpin and Conejos - used SCORE to process about 1,500 votes cast electronically or on paper at vote centers.

In Gilpin County, six election workers accessed SCORE at three vote centers to process about 250 voters, said clerk Jessica Lovingier. Up to five employees also used SCORE at the county elections office that day.

"It worked wonderfully," Lovingier said. "It's a great system."

In El Paso County, one of the largest voter counties, election workers used SCORE last November parallel with their county system and the problems were minor, said clerk Bob Balink.

He said he has so much confidence in SCORE that he got rid of the county database.

Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins, said he's more worried about the database than whether voting equipment will be certified.

Last month, Coffman decertified electronic voting and tallying machines used in all but 12 counties because of security and accuracy flaws.

"I think we would be very foolish to test this system in a polling place election in the presidential election year where we're going to have 90 percent turnout."

"We don't want Colorado to be the next Florida," he said. "There's a real potential of something like that happening."

Testing ongoing

Timmons said Saber built successful systems in Oregon, Maryland, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri and Montana before starting here.

Saber used the Iowa system as the base for building Colorado's, he said.

Saber's project also was structured much differently than Denver's failed e-pollbook. Denver's e-pollbook was not load-tested or stress-tested before Election Day and there was no accountability, Timmons said.

SCORE is undergoing frequent testing both manually and with computers. The secretary of state's office also hired an outside project manager and an independent firm to monitor progress.

SCORE also is prepared for catastrophes. The machines are set up with two groups of computers holding all the information so that one group can operate if the other goes down. There are also backup tapes and another emergency computer that holds all the data, Timmons said.

Timmons said he's been working with the governor's office and other state computer agencies to make sure SCORE succeeds.

"Everybody understand the importance here."

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com

Anatomy of a database

Colorado's new statewide voter registration database is causing anxiety among election officials, lawmakers and activists because it isn't finished and must be used in this year's presidential elections.

Q&A

What is SCORE?

It's the State of Colorado Registration and Election database - a network of about 90 computers and other devices in Denver that will hold all of the state's voter information.

Why do we need it?

The 2002 federal Help America Vote Act requires all states to implement statewide voter registration databases by 2004. Colorado got a waiver and was supposed to finish by 2006.

Why is it late?

Accenture, the first company hired to create it, lost its contract because it didn't meet deadlines. The new contractor, Saber Corp., is supposed to finish by spring.

What is finished? What isn't?

The system, used now by 17 counties, performs most functions, including checking voter eligibility and creating precinct-level poll books. Certain administrative functions - such as organizing petitions and helping county clerks hire and deploy poll workers - aren't ready.

COSTS*

* $9.7 million: contract for Saber, the Oregon software firm finishing the job

* $864,699: contract for Wyant Data Systems, a Louisville firm that is monitoring the project

* $99,892: contract for iBeta, an Aurora firm doing performance testing

* $359,578: amount, as of Jan. 18, paid to project manager Leigh-Anne McDonald, of First Stage Consulting, in Castle Rock. The contract pays her $65 an hour to $125 an hour.

WHAT'S NEXT?

* February: Eight more counties expected to go on SCORE; more counties get trained and added.

* April: All 64 counties expected to be using SCORE with the system at full performance capacity.

* Mid- to late April: All counties expected to hold mock elections mirroring the primary.

* May: All counties expected to hold mock elections mirroring general election.

* Aug. 12: Primary election

* Nov. 4: General election

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Comments

January 26, 2008

7:09 a.m.

Suggest removal

wwmike writes:

So what about provisional ballots? The Sate of Colorado needs to be prepared in every way to ensure every citizen has the opportunity to cast his vote - no matter what half-assed technology is chosen to help manage the election. (The key word here is "help".)

We cannot become victims of the technology we choose to make our lives easier. We've been conducting elections for 2 1/4 centuries in this country - it's not that hard.

I get pretty sick of reading articles from all over America that tell of people who were disenfranchised from their right to vote because of a glitch in "the system". Every American who shows up at a polling place has a right to cast a vote - whether it's by punching the little buttons, pulling the lever, connecting the line on the arrow, or writing the name of their choice on a piece of paper. If "the system" doesn't reflect that person as being a registered voter, then the person managing that polling stations has some work to do to verify eligibility beyond just saying, "I can't find you in the system, your vote doesn't count.

Come on, Mr. Coffman, make it work! Sometimes you need to think outside the box.
January 26, 2008

8:29 p.m.

Suggest removal

Jim writes:

The link is to a video clip of Abbot and Costello which illustrates the voting break down.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rLprXHbn19...

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