Hart Expecting Win
by Kirk Ladendorf, Austin American Statesman
published 03/03/2008
Hart InterCivic Inc. offers a forecast for its role in Tuesday's Texas primary elections.
"We will have 20 people working on our help desk, and we will be bored as can be," Operations Director Peter Lichtenheld said. "That is how it should be."
The 200-employee Austin company, which makes electronic voting systems and paper-based election systems, sets up a pingpong table next to its election day help desk area to give workers something to do between infrequent calls.
Lichtenheld said that Hart's e-voting systems were in use in more than 50 counties across the country during the Super Tuesday primaries and that there were no significant mishaps.
On Tuesday, its systems will be used in more than 100 counties in Ohio and Texas, including Travis, as residents cast votes in Democratic and Republican presidential primaries.
The company has other products, including systems that help governments integrate databases operated by several departments. But elections systems and services are the biggest part of the company, which is the fourth-largest U.S. maker of e-voting systems.
The company claims that its systems, which have been used in hundreds of large and small elections across the country since 2003, have never lost a vote. But Lichtenheld said Hart has to deal with the continuing controversy over the reliability of electronic voting systems.
The problems largely involve touch-screen systems. Hart uses a dial-and-button system, but critics tend not to make distinctions. Occasionally there are minor mishaps, Lichtenheld said, but they almost always turn out to be caused by human error and are typically handled quickly.
In Austin, a minor incident happened last week during early primary voting when a Hart eSlate machine was disconnected from its electronic ballot box and stopped working. The problem, a loose cable, was quickly corrected.
E-voting critics say Texas is among the "backward states" that have not changed their rules for e-voting machinery to require that they print a paper ballot. Election officials could use those ballots to verify votes if electronic systems failed or there was a challenge.
"Texas is back there stuck in time, and they have the same problems as they did in 2003, but a lot of the rest of the country has moved on," said David Dill, a board member of the Verified Voting Foundation who is also a computer science professor at Stanford University.
His group promotes the inclusion of a verified paper ballot service in all electronic voting systems.
Dill said many states have strengthened their rules on e-voting and improved the quality of their elections. "The progress has been pretty darn good, but there is a lot more work to do. Backwards states such as your own have to get with the times."
However, some of Hart's biggest customers praise its systems.
"I couldn't be happier that I am using Hart products," said Neal Kelley, registrar of voters for Orange County, Calif., the nation's fifth-largest county. Its system produces a verified paper ballot with every e-vote. Kelley's office has conducted three recounts in close elections in the past few years. Each time, he said, the Hart systems produced recount results that exactly matched the original tally.
"I have had these recounts come up on me, and we accounted for every single vote in the system with teams of attorneys and the media watching," he said. "These recounts have all come out on the money, and we accounted for every vote."
Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir is another satisfied customer.
"The eSlate has been a very durable and practical and stable system," DeBeauvoir said. "It is far more stable technology than some of the other systems. It is a very simple system. It is more like a calculator than a computer."
Despite its trust in the eSlate system, Travis County tests the system extensively before every election.
"It is really a continuous, never-ending series of tests," she said.
Lichtenheld said he recently completed a study of e-voting mishaps to try to find the root causes. His conclusion is that despite some well-publicized glitches that have occurred, particularly in Florida, e-voting problems are traceable to factors such as software and human errors and improper setup of electronic ballots. He found no substantiated evidence of fraud involving an e-voting system.
However, the notion of electronic voting still gives many Americans the creeps. Largely in reaction to that remaining fear, the newest trend in the industry is for paper ballot systems that are scanned and tabulated with more modern technology than was previously used.
Hart has just won a $43 million contract with the State of Hawaii to supply such a system.
Among electronic voting equipment makers,Hart continues to believe that it has a simpler and better technology than competing systems that depend primarily on touch-screens. Hart uses a rotating dial and punch buttons, and it claims that its systems are not subject to the extensive maintenance and recalibration that touch-screen systems require.
The company continues to adjust to continuing regulatory changes that affect e-voting systems and to the continued fears that such systems spark in some voters.
But Lichtenheld said Hart is in the business to stay. It expects to compete and win contracts for big new systems, such as the Hawaii bid. It also keeps selling systems and services to existing customers. Two leading services include basic training for election workers using its system and more specialized training for workers to combat fraud.
"It is a very challenging business," Lichtenheld said, "but we intend to grow."
kladendorf@statesman.com