electionline Weekly – October 11, 2007
electionline.org

I. In Focus This Week

Former elections office IT director introduces new voting system

Paper ballot and digital-pen technology ‘way ahead of its time’

By M. Mindy Moretti
electionline.org

If anyone had asked Chris Wilson while he was working in the Franklin County, Ohio elections office if they should get into the business of creating new voting technology, he would have told them they were crazy.

“If someone had come to me with an idea, I would have told them to run and hide and don’t waste your time because it’s such an uphill battle,” Wilson said. “But I think I know the landscape a bit.”

And it’s that inside knowledge of how elections work — in addition to Franklin County, Wilson also worked in elections offices in Florida and is currently an elections technology consultant — that Wilson and his partner Steve Hilsman hope to use to promote their new voting system that combines paper ballots and digital-pen technology.

“I didn’t set out to come up with something new. The whole thing started by accident really,” Wilson said. “It took me a while to put two and two together.”

The two and two that Wilson put together was combining digital paper with a digital pen and using it as a balloting system.

Wilson explains on his Web site, how the voting system would work. The system uses digital paper that contains thousands of tiny dots which can be read by a digital pen. The pen writes in ink and also knows where it is on the paper. The pen contains a small sensor that records the locations. After writing on the paper, the pen is placed in a cradle and the data is downloaded to an application. For voting, the pen knows if a circle or box has been checked in or filled in, much like optical scan. However, it is possible to show an image of the ballot on a computer screen so a voter may review their ballot and make changes before submitting it.

“It’s very similar to optical-scan, but it allows you to make corrections without having to worry about erase marks or smudges, or requesting a new ballot,” Wilson said. “The interesting thing about our system is that it’s the exact opposite of DRE. We vote on paper, but verify electronically.”

After working with a Massachusetts-based digital pen company to perfect his idea, Wilson knew he needed to test the system. But an unconventional idea needed an unconventional test-run so Wilson loaded up sample ballots and digital pens and hit several Columbus-area cafes and taverns where he had patrons give it a whirl.

“It was amazing how accurate it was,” Wilson said of his preliminary tests. “It reads the write-ins too.”

Wilson toyed with the notion of keeping his new idea to himself but figured it was better to go on the offensive with his project so he did a few live demonstrations this summer before elections officials and vendors.

“There was pretty much stunned silence in the room,” Wilson said. “People just didn’t believe it. But for the most part it was very, very well received. Although so many of them told us that we are way ahead of our time with the technology.”

Aaron Ockerman, a lobbyist for the Ohio Association of Election Officials saw a demonstration of the system at a small conference for election officials in Ohio and was impressed.

“I was kind of flabbergasted,” he told the Columbus Business Journal. “It seems almost too good to be true. It has every element you look for in a voting system.”

Although Wilson was unaware of it until he began doing research on his idea, the use of digital pen technology in elections is not completely new. Hamburg, Germany has used the technology in municipal elections as has a small town in Scotland.

Wilson noted that the technology can also be used for voter registration and electronic pollbooks, which is where he and Hilsman will be focusing their immediate attention because technologies used in electronic pollbooks and voter registration don’t require the same rigorous state and federal certification processes that voting systems do.

“Certification has been written around the existing technology so it often uses language that precludes new technologies,” Wilson said. “It really does give the upper-hand to the big, existing companies.”

But still despite what he considers an uphill battle, Wilson is willing to forge on with his new system.

“Our goal right now is to continue to look for investment and keep working on our trials and some of these other technologies,” Wilson said. “I wish it was super fast. I’m not in this to make money, and if I’m just one day known as the guy who introduced digital pen voting, well then I’m okay with that.”