Chads will hang on in Lane for a while.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Voting by punchcard soon will be a thing of the past in Lane County, but the big question remains: How soon?

Despite a federal law passed last year with the aim of removing the irregularities that marred the 2000 presidential election, Lane County voters probably will cast ballots for president one more time using the familiar, if occasionally confusing, punch-out-the-number system.

The law doesn't outlaw punchcard use, but it does call for states to standardize their voting systems and solve the problem of how to determine "voter intent," which caused such a furor when Florida voters accidentally botched their ballots in one of the closest presidential elections on record.

Nearly all of Oregon's 36 counties have switched to optical scanners that read paper ballots with penciled-in shapes such as those found on standardized tests or pick-your-own-numbers lottery tickets.

Lane, Washington and Clackamas counties are the only ones yet to make the switch - and they're gearing up to change, especially because the federal legislation includes money to do away with both punchcard and lever voting systems nationwide.

The state estimates that it will cost $2.3 million to bring optical scanning systems on line in the three punchcard counties, as well as reimburse four others that have gone to the new system since the problematic 2000 election. Lane County's share would be about $500,000.

Local elections chief Annette Newingham said if Lane County can't manage the switchover by the November 2004 election, she intends to have it online sometime in 2005. The federal government has set January 2006 as the final date for complying with the new elections law .

To get the money and meet other requirements, each state must prepare an elections plan that shows how it will centralize voter registration, guarantee privacy and independence for those casting ballots, make voting as easy as possible for people with disabilities and educate voters about how to cast ballots and make corrections in case of mistakes.

Secretary of State Bill Bradbury released the Oregon Elections Plan earlier this month. The state will begin a series of public hearings this week to gather public response to the plan, with a session scheduled April 21 in Eugene.

Based on her dozen years of experience overseeing elections, Newingham said Oregon in general and Lane County in particular have encountered relatively few of the problems that spurred the federal government to call for overhauling election systems.

"In some places, people were just sure that even the dogs and cats were registered to vote, but we've never had much problem with that kind of fraud," she said. "The new law is a one-shoe-fits-everyone situation, and in order to comply we have to make it fit us, too."

But the state does want to have a statewide registration system so that, for example, people who register to vote in a new county automatically fall off the voter list in their previous location. Keeping voter lists up-to-date takes on greater importance because of recent state laws that require a greater than 50 percent voter turnout to validate some election results.

Likewise, determining "voter intent" hasn't been a huge issue in Oregon either, as it has in Florida and many places, Newingham said.

"We are a `voter intent' state, which means we look at every ballot before it's counted to make sure there aren't problems with the ballot that will cause it to be counted improperly," she said. "In some states, they don't examine individual ballots unless the election is contested, or one county might check ballots for problems and another might not."

There's plenty of room for voter error regardless of the system used to tally votes, "but our pre-inspection system allows us to find problems and determine the voter's intent - and sometimes even to contact voters to correct them," she said.

Despite the fabled problems with "hanging," "pregnant" and other types of chads found on punchcard ballots, the much-maligned system also has its advantages, Newingham said.

"I realize punchcards can be confusing for some voters, but it really does work well for those of us on the 'back side' of the process," she said. "Punchcards are much quicker to tally, and they take up far less room to store than the paper ballots used by the optical scanning system."

That's important because by law counties must keep ballots for two years after each election, Newingham said.

In Oregon, the only state that has gone to a complete vote-by-mail system, the return envelopes also must be stored - separately to guarantee voter privacy - for two years. Even the unsigned secrecy envelopes must be saved for several months.

When the county does go to an optical scanning system, the Elections Division will have to find new quarters, Newingham said. Even in a relatively uncomplicated election, the scanned paper ballots take up four to eight times the space that punchcards do, and her operation already grapples with a significant space crunch amid tens of thousands of voter registration cards, stored ballots, counting machines and computers.

It also takes many more people to run an election with optically scanned ballots than one with punchcards, she said. A card reader can process 2,000 ballots per minute, while an optical scanner can handle at most 400. And, while one person can operate a card reader - with one or two others to verify proper procedure - it takes two people to run an optical scanner.

"What that will mean to us is having far more scanners than we have to have card readers," Newingham said. "We're not going to slow down the process - we'll do what we have to do to have efficient elections."

Instead of needing one card reader and two or three people to process ballots, in the future it could take six optical scanners and a dozen people to do the same work, she said.

Lane County spokeswoman Melinda Kletzok said the county's facilities staff "has been looking at all possible options to accommodate the new elections system," both in and out of county-owned properties.

PUBLIC HEARING ON "HELP AMERICA VOTE" PLAN

All states must submit plans for meeting new federal voter registration and election requirements. The Secretary of State's office has scheduled public hearings around the state to take citizen opinion on Oregon's draft plan, including one in Lane County.

When: 7 p.m. April 21

Where: Harris Hall, 125 E. Eighth Ave., Eugene

How to see the plan: Call the Secretary of State's office at [phone] or visit www.sos.state.or.us/elections/elechp.htm on the Internet