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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: (NH) Election officials shrug off criticisms of voting machines Election officials shrug off criticisms of voting machines Even as questions about last week's primary results are causing volunteers to labor through huge numbers of recount ballots in Concord, it is the small number of test ballots counted long before the election that are giving local election officials confidence. "We get the memory cards. Then we physically mark the sample ballots here, before we do the test. Nobody has any way of knowing how we were going to mark them. I can't even fathom how anybody could somehow change them," said Diane Trippett, Merrimack town clerk. "I'm not concerned at all," said Nashua City Clerk Paul Bergeron. Such confidence, however, is unlikely to end allegations that something is suspicious about the AccuVote optical voting machines, which are used to count the paper ballots in much of New Hampshire, including all its cities and most of Nashua's surrounding towns. "I am not saying any fraud occurred, I'm just saying that we don't know . . . because our votes are counted in secret by a private corporation and nobody can trust the system. We cannot believe the outcome," said Nancy Tobi, of Milford, who has been raising concerns about the machines for several years as part of a group called the New Hampshire Fair Elections Committee. "Citizen oversight and checks and balances are completely missing in the current system," Tobi said. "Eighty-one percent of (the state's) votes are counted by a private corporation in secret. That's the problem, that's the issue which needs to be changed." The issue flared up last week when, soon after the Jan. 8 primary, an online poster at www.checkthevotes.com analyzed results and found that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., did several percentage points better in communities that used AccuVote machines than in communities that counted ballots by hand. That analysis was prompted by Clinton's surprising result in the Democratic primary, which she won even though all pre-election polls predicted she would lose badly. Election officials and other experts attributed the difference in tallies to the fact that ballots are hand counted only in small towns and that Clinton's support was strongest in cities, which all use AccuVote. But the question exploded online, fueled by a long-running concern about Diebold, the company that makes AccuVote machines. The security of a different Diebold device – touch-screen electronic voting machines – has long been criticized, to the point where some states have stopped using them. Further, Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti has demonstrated a relatively simple "hack" of the software on the AccuVote optical-voting memory card, which can alter results in some circumstances. Hursti testified before the state Ballot Law Commission last year, urging them not to keep using AccuVote machines. The firestorm of attention over the primary prompted the ongoing hand recount of statewide ballots, the first such recount in a quarter century. However, some area town clerks said Thursday that years of experience with AccuVote machines, including numerous recounts for local elections, gave them confidence in the devices. "Our recounts have always shown that these machines are very accurate," Trippett said. Equally important, they said, are pre-voting tests that are made using the memory card that will power each machine on election day. Nashua City Clerk Paul Bergeron said this test is why he thinks Hursti's hack, in which a change in the software on the memory card hid some votes, wouldn't work in reality. The pre-test, he said, would spot it. A week before the primary, Bergeron's office ran dozens of marked ballots through each of the 10 AccuVote machines owned by the city (one for each of the nine wards, and a backup). Bergeron said he filled in the oval next to the name of each of the 51 candidates for president and vice president in the two parties, to ensure the cards were programmed to spot every candidate. When it was over, he hand-counted them to see if the AccuVote result agreed. "In 13 years, I think there have been two times (when the pre-test showed problems)," he said. One of those times was this primary. He sent the card back to LHS to get it replaced. As for Tobi, she said even if the recount agrees with the tally it won't end her concerns, because of "chain of custody" issues. She said there was uncertainty about what happened to ballots between being sealed in boxes at polling places following the primary and until they were opened in Concord for the recount. "If you think the hand count is the only way to really secure the election, then let's do the hand count on election night," she said. "A parallel hand-count is the way to be certain." Bergeron isn't convinced. He points to his experience running for state representative two decades ago, when he lived in Hudson and ballots were all counted by hand. He lost the race until another candidate requested a recount; when it was over, results had changed for six people – and he had won. David Brooks can be reached at 594-5831 or dbrooks@nashuatelegraph.com.
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