As politicians, activists and voters debate the pros and cons of new voting technology, election officials in at least one small Virginia community are claiming success in switching to a fully electronic system.

Charlottesville, Va.'s electoral board began considering a switch to electronic voting machines in February 2000, after using a punch card system for 15 years. Citizens had complained that the punch card devices were hard to use and were not accessible to the disabled, said Sherri Iachetta, Charlottesville's registrar of voters.

According to Iachetta, problems in Florida during the 2000 presidential election further solidified the board's resolve to find a new system. Although Charlottesville had no major problems with its punch card system, Iachetta said the move toward new machines was an "evolution" brought on by voter needs and concerns.

After an initial round of shopping to narrow down their choices, the city invited community input.

"We started looking and our board brought in four or five different vendors, and we opened it up to the public," Iachetta said.

After feedback from citizens and civic groups the board settled on a system known as "eSlate" manufactured by Hart InterCivic, a Texas-based company that specializes in voting systems and information storage for businesses and government agencies. The Austin-American Statesman estimates that Hart InterCivic has sold 25,000 eSlate machines nationwide. That number of machines serves some 5 million voters.

How eSlate Works
Hart InterCivic chairman David Hart has compared the eSlate system to a "Palm Pilot on steroids." It is a flat gray box with a large screen that presents an electronic ballot to voters who use a dialing mechanism to highlight and select their choices. For use in polling locations, the machine is placed inside a portable plastic booth.

According to voting officials, the eSlate system was designed to help voters avoid errors. Before entering the booth, voters are given a randomly generated access code printed on a receipt-sized piece of paper. The code allows a voter to cast one ballot on the system. Once the code is entered into the machine, a voter can begin making ballot selections.

The system offers several advantages over older methods. The eSlate system prevents "over-voting," or marking two choices for the same office. It also gives voters the opportunity to review their selections before they cast the ballot. Over-voting and the lack of ballot review have been cited as two of the major problems during the 2000 election.

Once a ballot is cast at an eSlate voting booth, the information is electronically transferred to a machine called the "judges booth controller" or JBC, operated by a polling location supervisor. After the polling location closes, election workers seal the JBC machines and take them to the registrar's office. There, a data card is removed from the JBC and inserted into a central computer that automatically tabulates the vote.

The system's features for the disabled proved a major selling point for the board. Election officials say Charlottesville, a city of about 42,000 -- with roughly 20,000 registered voters -- has a relatively high number of disabled voters.

"We liked the fact that people who were blind, people who were illiterate, people who had any number of disabilities were able to vote in secret, independent of any assistance and that really intrigued us and pleased us," Iachetta said of the eSlate system.

Visually impaired voters can listen to detailed audio instructions and use Braille guides on the machine itself. The hearing impaired can follow on-screen instructions. Those with disabled limbs may use tactile paddles or pedals to scroll through ballot selections. Quadriplegic voters can plug their own standardized mechanisms into the eSlate terminal in order to vote.

"It was wonderful," said Carolyn Berry, a blind Charlottesville voter who used the new system to cast her first-ever secret ballot. "It opened up a whole new world for us."

Other disabled voters agree, according to Tom Vandever, executive director of Charlottesville's Independence Resource Center, a nonprofit group that seeks to assist those with disabilities.

"They're clearly an improvement," Vandever said. "We've gotten a number of good comments."

Testing and Certification
Though Charlottesville election officials decided in 2001 that eSlate best met their needs, the state of Virginia had not yet certified the system. Historically, individual states have set voting systems standards. In most states, local municipalities are allowed to choose from a set of state-certified systems.

Iachetta said that when the city was shopping for a system, Hart InterCivic was in the process of getting eSlate certified. The company only needed to meet one of the final state requirements -- testing the system during an actual vote.

In May 2002, Charlottesville used eSlate on a trial basis for its city council election. According to Iachetta, the test election was a "very positive experience".

The city conducted an exit survey, showing that out of nearly 3,300 questioned voters, roughly 80 percent gave the system a "4" or "5" rating on a 1-5 scale. The new system's most popular aspect was the ability to review the ballot, which 1,435 voters singled out as their favorite eSlate feature.

Charlottesville purchased the eSlate system in fall 2002 and used it in full for the November 2002 election. Iachetta said that as of November 2003, she was still very pleased with the system.

Voter Response on Election Day
As voters used the machines for only the second general election, most continued to give the machines high marks for their simplicity and usability, but some also expressed the concern that senior citizens and those who aren't computer savvy may not be able to easily operate the system.

Some elderly voters were seen asking for assistance from voting officials even after watching a short instruction video. After some one-on-one help, however, they appeared able to cast their votes with relative ease.

Most also said the machines were an improvement over the punch card system.

"The new electronic machine is really nice, you just kind of dial down and press enter, and when you're finished you press cast your ballot and you're done. There's nothing to do -- there's no old paper card to insert into the machine, it's finished, they hand you a sticker and you're finished," said voter Stephanie Dudley.

Some voters thought their aging parents might have trouble or need extra assistance when first introduced to the new system.

"I don't find it confusing, at all, but it's interesting, I was wondering as I was voting if my 86-year-old father would find this confusing. He is not the least bit senile, but on the other hand he is not very adept at turning a wheel and highlighting, I mean that just might seem strange to him," said Margo Browning.

Browning added that with some help she did think her father would figure out the system.

Funding and Training
Iachetta said educating the public and overcoming certain citizens' "phobia" of technology has been one of the challenges in implementing the new system. She said the elections office staff had gone out of its way to make sure voters understand how to use the machines, traveling to assisted living homes, community groups, schools and even to grocery stores to demonstrate the new technology.

Iachetta said Charlottesville decided to buy a new system -- and set aside $225,000 to do so -- well before the federal Help America Vote Act authorized $3.9 billion for nationwide voting system upgrades. Under HAVA, the state is responsible for dispersing funds to cover upgrades, but as of mid-November 2003 the city had received no HAVA money. Iachetta said the city hopes to recoup some of the expense for the new system when HAVA funds are dispersed by the state.

"We kind of feel like we've met the requirements and that the funds should go ahead and be dispersed to us since we have it. ... The state has not told us how it's going to happen."

The National Debate Over Electronic Voting
In spite of positive reviews from citizens and officials in communities like Charlottesville, some localities have had problems with electronic voting equipment.

Recent studies have criticized the manufacturers of some electronic voting systems for inadequate security features. A report commissioned by Ohio Secretary of State John Blackwell criticized the eSlate system in particular.

The report showed that of the four systems examined, Hart InterCivic's had 10 identified security risks. Elections Systems & Software Inc. had 17, while Diebold and Sequoia systems both had 15.

Although Hart InterCivic had a low number of overall risks, it had four "high" risks, the second largest among the four systems

One of the risks identified in the Ohio report is the way the individual eSlate voting terminals are connected with the judge's booth controller. According to the report, a voter could easily disconnect the cable connecting the machines, disabling it and all the machines that were "down the line" from it. The report recommended that HartInterCivic modify the machines so the cable could not be disconnected.

Another identified risk was that access to the poll closing function of a JBC terminal was protected by an optional password. The report recommended that the password be made mandatory and that election officials take administrative precautions such as limiting those who have physical access to the JBC machines.

A third identified risk was the lack of data encryption on the eSlate system.

HartInterCivic spokesman Bill Stotesbery said the company believes its system is currently secure, but is willing to incorporate the Ohio report's recommendations to further enhance security.

Stotesbery said that in 3 million votes cast using eSlate systems, no one has ever disconnected a cable. Stotesbery said if a cable was disconnected, the system would simply have to be shut down and reactivated, which correctly trained poll workers can do in less than a minute. However, the company is looking into locking devices that will ensure the cables cannot be disconnected.

Stotesbery further said state and local jurisdictions can currently set up mandatory passwords for the poll closing functions.

In a statement, the company said it was working on encryption for the eSlate system when the Ohio report was released and will move forward with its implementation.

The company's statement also pointed out that the Ohio report found that many of the system's preexisting security design features were sound and that it lauded HartInterCivic for working with testing and certification authorities.

"We're fairly pleased with the outcome of the report," Stotesbery said.

Security on the Local Level
Back in Charlottesville, Registrar Sherri Iachetta said city officials are not worried about security concerns.

She points to security features such as mandatory compound passwords that require two authorized election officials to be present in order to operate the central computer that creates the ballot and tallies the final vote.

Iachetta said that the system is a "stand alone" network that is not connected to the Internet or any outside line, making the system less vulnerable to computer hackers.

Charlottesville officials said they have conducted their own security tests, to determine if an outside person could tamper with the system. They said their testing found that the system was secure.

The city's implementation of the system has not been free from error. During one early use, a number of precincts ran out of paper used to print voters' randomly generated access codes. The company had miscalculated the amount needed.

She said other drawbacks to the system include the system's annual licensing fee of $16,000 and inevitable maintenance and software upgrade costs, which the city did not incur with a punch card system.

Charlottesville's small size makes logistical problem solving easier than it is for larger locales. Election officials pointed out that no precinct is more than a ten-minute drive from the registrar's office. If a problem occurs on election officials can respond quickly.

In fact, some larger localities have experienced problems. The Houston Chronicle reported technical difficulties at certain Harris County, Texas, precincts using the eSlate machines during the Nov. 5 election. Officials there said the problems were traced to poll workers who weren't operating the equipment properly and to confusion about overlapping voting jurisdictions.

The Paper Trail
Although Charlottesville officials are convinced that their new machines currently meet all federal HAVA requirements, a nationwide debate is under way about whether to require a voter-verified individual paper record of every vote. New Jersey U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D) has proposed amending the HAVA bill to mandate this kind of auditable "paper trail."

Holt is not alone in his push. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recently announced that all voting machines used in his state must provide a voter-verifiable paper record by 2006.

Charlottesville elections office software technician Fred Schneider said a verifiable paper record would not be necessary to ensure the security of the voting but might provide voters with "peace of mind."

HartInterCivic spokesman Stotesbery said the eSlate system could be upgraded to include a voter-verified paper record if state or federal officials require it. He said the company is working on ways to add such component to the machines, but wants to ensure its solutions will meet the still largely undefined requirements mandated by government officials.

Iachetta said she does not believe a paper trail is necessary to verify a vote or conduct a recount.

"There are other ways that this system has to recount," she said.

Administrative Advantages
Besides benefits to the voters, Charlottesville election officials said the electronic system has cut in half the time it takes to tally final election results.

They said it has also made creating and setting up the ballot a much easier task and saves the cost and effort of printing thousands of punch cards.

Registrar Iachetta said that, in spite of minor glitches and future concerns, the advantages the system provides to Charlottesville voters "far outweigh" the disadvantages.

-- By Jason Manning, Online NewsHour