Charlie Krogmeier, Des Moines
Reader's Letter
February 20, 2006 10:27 am
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A few days ago the Clinton Herald ran an editorial entitled “Placing blame where it belongs” that was critical of requirements of state and federal law under the Help America Vote Act. Specifically, the Herald criticized costs that will be incurred by Clinton County to comply with new election equipment standards.
Certainly there is a long history of state and federal mandates being imposed on local governments that often have meant additional costs to local taxpayers. That is partially true with HAVA. While more than $31 million in federal and state funds have been committed to carrying out all of the HAVA mandates in Iowa, counties are bearing some additional costs due to HAVA.
However, the Herald editorial missed the mark on assigning the “blame” for all local county costs. The Iowa Secretary of State did not mandate that Clinton County officials acquire precinct count optical scan voting machines. In fact, the Iowa HAVA Voting Systems Funding Plan (available at www.sos.state.ia.us/pdfs/elections/hava/New) specifically gives counties several options regarding different types of voting equipment.
This HAVA Plan, adopted by Secretary of State Chet Culver in April 2005 after months of discussions with county elections officials, allowed counties the choice of precinct count optical scan equipment or touch screen electronic machines. Clinton County, which in the past has used electronic voting machines, selected the new precinct count optical scan equipment. Several other Iowa counties have opted for the electronic voting machines. This was a local choice, not a decision made by a state official.
Counties also had several options for the operating software for the new voting machines. These choices impacted the final cost for HAVA compliance. Two similar size counties, Dallas and Cerro Gordo, ended up spending considerably less per voter than Clinton. Again, decisions made locally determined the final cost.
The Herald editorial also was misleading in construing the future costs to operate the new voting equipment. Not all of the costs listed in the editorial are necessarily “new” costs to Clinton County. For example, annual maintenance costs have existed for the old Clinton County machines.
Congress passed HAVA as a reaction to the Florida election debacle of 2000. All of Iowa’s members of Congress supported this law. Fortunately, Iowa has not had the scandalous history of election mismanagement that we have seen elsewhere. However, HAVA is a national law that imposes election reforms on all states.
Congress wanted a higher level of voting equipment technology than existed in most states prior to 2000. The new standards, commonly referred to as the 2002 Voting System Standards, effectively made all voting equipment in Iowa legally obsolete even though the equipment might have had considerable “useful life” left.
This didn’t mean the old equipment was necessarily defective. It just meant newer, more accurate technologies were now available and required by state and federal law.
Taken together, these reforms are a positive step in making sure our elections are run fairly, efficiently and accurately. No longer will Iowa have a hodge-podge of 99 different voter registration databases. There is now a single, centralized, statewide, real time voter registration database. This is required by and funded by HAVA. Accessibility to more than 500 polling places in Iowa has been improved due to HAVA funds. And all Iowa counties will have new, more modern, more accurately tested voting machines. Not a bad list of accomplishments.
It’s not a matter of whom to blame, as the Herald editorial suggested. Rather, it is the hundreds of Iowans including state and local officials that should be credited with a successful implementation of the Help America Vote Act. Together, we Iowans are making our good election process even better.
Charlie Krogmeier is first deputy Secretary of State.
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