MAKING IT COUNT STUDY CALLS FOR REPLACING PUNCH CARDS, VOTING TOOLS.

Byline: Usha Sutliff Staff Writer

PASADENA - Punch cards and lever machines should be replaced with optical scanners nationwide to ensure that more votes get counted, according to a study released Monday by Caltech and MIT.

In the wake of the 2000 presidential election, the two universities put together a team of computer scientists, mechanical engineers and social scientists to figure out what works and what doesn't when it comes to voting technology.

``They found the problem is more serious than we had imagined even last December,'' said Caltech President David Baltimore during a teleconference held in Pasadena and Cambridge, Mass. ``The voting process has previously not been taken seriously as a central element of the democratic process.''

Researchers said faulty and outdated voting technology and registration problems were to blame for many of the 4 million to 6 million votes not counted during the 2000 election.

``That's an unacceptably high rate,'' said MIT political science professor Stephen Ansolabehere. ``There are several other states where the scenario that we saw play out in Florida could have also happened just as easily.''

Optical scanning of paper ballots has the best track record of all the types of voting equipment in use, researchers found.

``Paper is very familiar. It is easy to use and it is easy to fix,'' Ansolabehere said. ``The challenge is to make future generations of voting technology even easier to use and more familiar than paper. We are not there yet.''

With an optical scanning system, the voter indicates a choice on a paper ballot by coloring in an oval or completing an arrow, much like on standardized tests, said R. Michael Alvarez, Caltech associate professor of political science.

The ballot is then optically scanned, a process which the voter can be present for to immediately correct problems, he said, noting that upping the usage of optical scanning systems is only a short-term solution.

The researchers proposed a combination of quick fixes and long-term solutions.

Their recommendations included:

--Making countywide - or even statewide - voter registration data available at polling places, electronically or on hard copies.

--Making provisional ballots available in every precinct, so people can vote if registration problems can't be resolved at the polling place.

--Replacing ``on demand'' absentee voting with on-site early voting.

--Field-testing new voting equipment.

--Providing federal matching grants for equipment and registration system upgrades.

--Creating an election administration agency, independent of the Federal Election Commission, that would oversee the grants program and serve as an information clearinghouse and databank.

The reforms would cost about $3 per registered voter, or a total of roughly $400 million, said Thomas Palfrey, a Caltech professor of economics and political science.

That would be in addition to the roughly $1 billion spent annually on elections, he said.

To view the Caltech-MIT study, go to vote.caltech.edu.