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Registrars defend ballots Punch-card voting systems have shown to be very accurate over the years in hand, machine and court-ordered recounts, McCormack said. The ACLU filed suit in 2001, after the presidential election debacle, under the Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act, saying nine counties using punch card systems at the time were disenfranchising voters because of high error rates. The suit sought to get rid of punch cards and require counties to replace them with more up-to-date systems. That same year, former Secretary of State Bill Jones said counties using punch cards would have to buy new equipment by January 2006. The federal judge in the case moved up the date for getting rid of punch cards to March 2004, in time for the next presidential primary election. When the recall election was certified in August, all but the six counties said they could have new voting systems in place by the Oct. 7 election day. In those six, money and logistics prevented them from doing it any earlier than March. Santa Clara County has already adopted a touch-screen voting system that it intended to try out in the November municipal elections to prepare for the March 2004 primary. But the system won't be up and running by October. In Los Angeles, McCormack said, there's not enough money to convert to a $100 million electronic voting system, so the county will convert to a small-ballot optical scan system to meet the court order in March, a system that would have a hard time accommodating the recall and primary ballots. Even more voters could be disenfranchised as a result.
``Every voting system has its pluses and minuses,'' said Sally McPherson, San Diego County registrar of voters, saying punch cards offered the best option for an October election. ``Implementing a new system by October would have been worse that sticking with what's tried and true.''
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