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New election panel looking to end uncertainty

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 17, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Coffman had created turmoil by banning some machines.

Coffman had created turmoil by banning some machines.

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State and county election officials face more uncertainty next year over whether they can continue to use millions of dollars of electronic voting and tallying machines, many just three years old.

The problem centers on a law passed in February that gave Secretary of State Mike Coffman more flexibility to approve e-voting equipment for use in this year's elections.

The law was passed in the midst of turmoil created by Coffman's decertification of thousands of e-voting and counting machines because of security and accuracy problems.

House Bill 1155 paved the way for Coffman to approve those machines for use in the August and November elections with restrictions.

But the law is set to expire July 1.

If HB 1155 isn't renewed, the most likely scenario is that all of the machines Coffman banned from use in December 2007 will return to decertified status.

Some lawyers, however, could interpret HB 1155 differently, said Maurice Knaizer, assistant deputy attorney general.

Knaizer testified Tuesday about the bill at a meeting of the new state Election Reform Commission. The panel is charged with making recommendations to the legislature about election issues by March.

Knaizer said HB 1155 and other state laws regarding electronic voting equipment are unclear and in conflict with each other.

Larimer County Clerk Scott Doyle, a member of the commission, said the expiration of HB 1155 "puts us with a pretty dim future, the way the clerks are looking at this."

Lawyer Paul Hultin, another commissioner, said HB 1155 puts the state in an "untenable situation" with regard to the process of approving e-voting equipment.

Election administration has become highly complex since the passage of the federal Help America Vote Act in 2002.

The federal law gave states huge sums of money to purchase equipment usable by disabled voters.

But the federal Election Assistance Commission still hasn't certified the machines against federal standards.

As a result, Colorado has been conducting its own approval process, which was the subject of a 2006 lawsuit by local activists who don't trust e-voting machines.

A judge ruled that the secretary of state's office failed to appropriately test e-voting equipment against security standards.

That led to Coffman's latest round of testing and his announcement last year to ban thousands of machines from use.

The next reform commission meeting is scheduled for Jan. 5 in Pueblo.

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361