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After glitches, panel to issue report on House voting board on Sept. 30 |
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By Karissa Marcum
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Posted: 08/15/07 07:17 PM [ET] |
Following well-publicized snafus shortly before recess, a select bipartisan committee is looking into the voting irregularities that occurred in the House on Aug. 2. The six-member board, appointed by House leaders, plans to release an interim report by Sept. 30.
Meanwhile, House Administration Committee Chairman Robert Brady (D-Pa.) is meeting with officials from the House clerk’s office on Thursday to discuss a second incident — the voting board’s blackout Aug. 3, which Democratic sources say resulted from a disconnection of the board’s power plug.
The technology used to count votes on the House floor appears to have been updated little since the 1970s. Concerns about the system have been especially acute since the two incidents, which occurred during a tense week on the floor.
The blackout delayed work for almost an hour and caused tempers to reach a boiling point just before the August recess.
Nerves were especially raw after Rep. Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.), who was presiding over the chamber the night of Aug. 2, declared the failure of a Republican motion and ended the vote even though the board showed Republicans leading 215-213.
The vote was reopened and Democrats had to persuade colleagues to switch sides to defeat the motion.
Frank Ryan helped oversee the design and installation of the voting system in 1973, when he served as director of House information systems.
He said he is surprised the system hasn’t been drastically modernized since then, calling the failure to do so “ridiculous.”
Each member votes by inserting a personalized plastic Vote-ID Card into one of 46 voting stations on the House floor. The first voting cards had perforations, but the newer ones are read by a computer chip. The cards identify the members, who have the option of punching “yea,” “nay” or “present” to vote. The votes are then tallied and displayed on the voting board.
Ensuring the positive identification of members was a concern when the system was built, Ryan said. Those concerns did not end with the computer chip system. In a vote after its installation, a member complained that his card wasn’t working.
According to Ryan, the member had apparently been using another member’s card after agreeing to vote on behalf of his colleague — a violation of House rules.
“It’s a security weakness in which we’re depending upon the honesty of the congressman,” Ryan said.
A fingerprint scanner had been proposed in the 1970s during the initial system’s design, but the House rejected the idea because the scanner had a 2 percent failure rate, Ryan said.
But the idea surfaced again in a 2001 memorandum, written by a Congressional Research Service analyst, which listed a variety of newer biometric measures that could be used, including digital signatures and retinal scans.
Some say that the system has a good overall track record, but when it does fail, its outdated technology becomes apparent.
Former Clerk Donnald Anderson, who was on the House floor when the board crashed Aug. 3, said the system was generally reliable during his eight-year tenure. It was also efficient, cutting time down from 45 minutes for a roll call vote to just 15 minutes.
However, Anderson agreed that the system’s “horse-and-buggy technology” needed improvement.
“I buy a new car every few years because new features are available in a new car. A car with more miles might not be as reliable,” Anderson said. “Technology marches on.”
Adam Holmes, the manager of operations and emergency preparedness in the House clerk’s office, said the system has undergone several upgrades as newer technology becomes available. But he declined to specify what has been updated.
Kyle Anderson, spokesman for the House Administration panel, said an “extensive overhaul of the system has been proposed for some time.” But he emphasized that installing a new system would be expensive and disruptive because it would require construction on the floor.
Ryan said safeguards were built into the system. It was connected to a backup electrical source in the event of a power outage. Two computers monitored voting simultaneously to keep votes from being lost if one computer malfunctioned.
Holmes declined to specify how many computers operate the board at present, saying only that the main computer is on the fourth floor of the Rayburn House Office Building. There is an electronic link to the House chamber, where the tally clerk controls the operation of the system. When all the votes are cast, the displays and television feeds are turned off and the final results are recorded.
The Aug. 3 debacle was not the first time the voting system has failed.
In 1988, an amendment to the defense authorization bill appeared to be headed for defeat when the voting board began blinking and showed a new score, tallying more votes than there were members of the House. The reading clerk then recorded the votes by roll call and the amendment was defeated.
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