http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_vote25.a1446.html

Press Enterprise

March 24, 2004

County sues to stop paper order

ELECTIONS: The state wants audit trails to supplement touch-screen voting systems by 2006.

By Michael Coronado and Michelle DeArmond, The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend this week joined a lawsuit against Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who wants the county to add printers to its touch-screen voting booths by 2006.

The lawsuit claims that Shelley's order requiring a paper-audit trail that voters can look at while using the electronic machines violates the rights of disabled voters who would need extra help to cast their ballots.

Visually impaired voters, who can vote with the assistance of headphones on the electronic machines, would be unable to review the tape without assistance, thus their right to vote in secret would be violated, Townsend said.

Additionally, no electronic voting systems with paper-audit trails have been federally approved, thus making it impossible for counties to comply with Shelley's directive, she said.

Riverside County is the first of 14 counties using similar voting systems to sue the state, said John McDermott, lead attorney in the lawsuit.

The county's involvement in the lawsuit was news to Shelley's office.

"This is the first we've heard about it, and it's something that we'll need to learn more about," spokesman Doug Stone said Wednesday.

Shelley does, however, plan to talk about electronic-voting systems at a meeting next month. His office's Voting Systems and Procedures panel is set to meet April 21 and 22 in Sacramento, according to a public meeting notice.

That panel plans to study reports on the March primary, election, discuss voting systems for the November election and review an investigation of Diebold voting systems. Both Riverside and San Bernardino counties use a touch-screen system known as Sequoia.

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