By David Hinckley
A BYU professor released a new study last week revealing that, contrary to both popular opinion and a statement by former Vice President Al Gore, outdated voting machines are found more often in rich counties than poor counties.
In the heat of the 2000 election fiasco, Gore told reporters to remember 'old and cheap' voting machinery is most often found in areas with 'lower income, minorities and seniors on fixed incomes.'
But according to assistant professors of economics Phillip Garner and Enrico Spolaore, from BYU and Brown University, respectively, the statement doesn''t hold water.
The two educators conducted most of their research following the 2000 elections. They took demographic data from the 1990 census - the 2000 census wasn''t available at the time of the study - and combined it with information about types of voting machines used in counties around the nation.
'The results surprised me,' Garner said.
They found older voting equipment, like punch cards, was more often found in counties where income topped the national average. For example, the median annual income in counties using punch cards was $30,584, while the median income for all counties was $28,475.
In addition, counties with smaller numbers of minorities were also more likely to have outdated equipment: punch-card counties were 12.5 percent minority versus a 15.5 percent average for all counties.
Garner and Spolaore explained the discrepancy by pointing to earlier upgrades for richer counties.
'We looked back at historical data and found a leapfrogging story,' Garner said.
He said richer counties upgraded from paper ballots much earlier last century, and generally found little incentive to continue upgrading once they no longer had to count ballots by hand. But when poorer counties came around to upgrading later in the century, they took advantage of more advanced technology like optical scanners and touch-screens.
But the trend found in the study doesn''t cover counties that never moved away from paper ballots. While the study found counties with older upgrades tend to be richer than the national average, those that never upgraded at all, and still use hand-counted paper ballots, were found to be significantly poorer.
Both patterns prove true in Utah. According to a map by Election Data Services, a political consulting firm used in the study, more affluent areas of the state like Morgan and Summit counties continue to use punch cards, but poorer counties like Emory and San Juan have upgraded to optical scanners. Norman Johnson, San Juan county clerk, said his county upgraded straight from paper ballots in the mid-1990s.
Meanwhile, only the smallest counties continue to use paper ballots. Wayne, Piute, Rich and Daggett counties have yet to upgrade.
The Election Data Services map also shows that every county in Florida now uses advanced technology in their voting systems.