Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Saturday evening, Jan Dawes ran into a problem when she went to Highland Mall to vote in the primary.

As the Austin resident hit the "cast ballot" button after she'd made her choices on the eSlate voting machine, a message appeared warning her to "Reconnect to system to record vote."

It turned out that a pin in the back of the machine had become disconnected from the electronic ballot box, one of three places where votes are stored electronically. Reconnecting the pin would have automatically sent her vote to the ballot box.

But technicians wanted to make sure everything was all right. So they canceled Dawes' vote, rebooted all machines at the site and had her vote again.

Although Dawes' vote was counted — and Travis County's eSlate machines have had precious few problems in the seven years they've been in use —some see this as an example of what can go wrong with electronic voting machines.

"I had to wonder," Dawes said "if other voters left and didn't see the same thing."

County officials say the machines — manufactured locally by Austin-based Hart InterCivic Inc. — are superior to paper ballots because they are faster, save time and money, are easier for people with disabilities to use, and erase doubts about "voter intent" that made the hanging chads of the 2000 U.S. presidential election so infamous.

But with a high profile, high-turnout primary just a week away, critics say computer glitches on electronic systems could lead to errors in vote totals and, without paper records, make real recounts impossible.

"If you have a challenge, there are no real independent ballots to recount," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Harrington's group filed a lawsuit with the attorney general's office in 2006 to stop Travis County from using machines without paper ballots and to get the secretary of state to stop certifying the use of paperless machines. (Counties can use any system for voting, as long as it has been certified by the state.)

The lawsuit is on hold, and Harrington, like many critics, would like to see a return to the use of optical scan voting machines: a computerized scanner that tallies marked-in votes on paper ballots.

"ESlates are better than a lot of other stuff, but it's not good to say you're the best of the bad," he said. "What (the incident at Highland) illustrates is that machines have problems, and often they don't know the problems are going on."

The Texas Legislature does not require a voter-verifiable paper trail that can be printed and viewed by the voter at the polling place, but Hart InterCivic offers an eSlate with a printer for states that do.

These systems, which print out and store a paper copy of the ballot that the voter compares to what's on the screen, are used in areas of California, Washington, Illinois, Colorado, and Ohio, said Hart InterCivic spokesman Peter Lichtenheld. In some states, that paper ballot is legally considered the official ballot, but most voters don't look at it, he said.

"It's a small but vocal minority who wanted these changes," Lichtenheld said. "There's just some people who don't trust any computer equipment for voting."

The printer has several disadvantages, Lichtenheld said. It adds the cost of paper, poll workers must be trained to use and fix it, and it adds time .

No print-and-view ballots are used anywhere in Texas.

Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir is recognized both statewide and nationally as a leader in the elections field. She has been credited with modernizing the county clerk's office, promoting voter turnout and streamlining the process.

So, DeBeauvoir says, it's no accident that Travis County hasn't encountered the snafus that have plagued other places. The machines are subjected to "logic and accuracy testing," and the clerk's office ensures that every machine is in proper working order before it goes out into the field.

Workers select voting machines at random and test them as realistically as possible during the time that votes are being cast. DeBeauvoir also said the county has never had an experience where the three recorded votes on the electronic system didn't match one another.

"Our work is never done," DeBeauvoir said of maintaining accuracy and security. In 2000, a community panel consisting of various voters and election judges recommended using eSlate machines. The machines were put to use in November 2001. Travis County initially invested $5 million in voting equipment and long-term support services.

"It's a touch button system, not touch screen, which means it's already handicapped-accessible," she said. "If you have trouble seeing, touching the screen doesn't help you one bit."

She said that's limited the chances for errors. Problems have cropped up when voters drag their fingers across the screen while selecting candidates and the computer is unsure of how to record the vote. Also, touch-sensitive screens can wear out under pressure.

It's not a Microsoft-based system, she said, which reduces the risk of someone who knows Windows being able to affect machines. Hays County uses the same system as Travis.

The county doesn't rely on the company to program, audit and repair the machines. That's done in-house by Travis County. As for training poll workers, she said they haven't run into many problems because eSlates are more like calculators than computers.

"It's a dumb box: You push a button, and it does what it's supposed to do," she said. "There isn't any other interface to get into them."