They are bleary-eyed and growing exhausted with a process that is dragging into the third day. But the recount is narrowing the spread between the candidates and political power hangs in the balance.
No, the people in the room aren't with the Bush and Gore campaigns, and the setting isn't the state of Florida, circa 2000.
 Some San Mateo County voters feel more comfortable with the old system of voting than they do with new touch-screen systems. |
Last autumn's local election concluded in a lengthy recount process and a slim majority for McClung. While no one alleged irregularities at the voting booth in that election, it was a reminder that a handful of election office mistakes or fraudulent votes could turn the political fortunes of the town.
Today, the heart of the election reform debate is centered on electronic ballot stations, and San Mateo County has been right in the middle of that debate in recent weeks. On Aug. 15, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved a $10.5 million purchase of a new electronic ballot system, including the voting devices themselves and back office software and support to help run the system.
It was overdue; the existing system was 14 years old and the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002 significantly changed ways in which elections were run. But not everyone agrees that Warren Slocum, the county's chief elections officer, made the right decision when he chose Hart InterCivic to supply the county with its electronic voting machines.
Those machines will be put to the test for the first time this November, as residents of San Mateo County head to the polls to cast their votes on a wide variety of elections and measures.
Brent Turner, a Half Moon Bay resident and voter rights activist, is worried.
"I think the burden is on the government to show us they are using secure systems," Turner said. Right now, he says, the government isn't doing that.
Turner has been pushing the government to adopt open source software machines. Now, the four certified companies who provide the voting machines keep their software code a secret, leaving no way to verify their security, Turner says.
It was those now infamous scenes in Florida six years ago that spurned Turner to act. At the Aug. 15 meeting, he and a large number of voters rights activists presented evidence of what they say is the potential for disaster. It did not go as they hoped.
The implementation of new electronic voting machines comes primarily in response to the federal voting act. It requires that the disabled be able to vote privately and independently. Rich Gordon, who represents parts of the Coastside on the Board of Supervisors, says he is exceedingly confident that Slocum made the right choice.
"I have a great deal of confidence in Warren Slocum. He's built into this contract ways in which we'll be able to check how well this system works," he said.
Learning the new machines in the midst of an important election cycle is what concerned Dennis Paull, a Coastsider, precinct inspector at Hatch Elementary and a member of the California Election Protection Network. Paull asked the supervisors to continue using the system that was used for the primaries in June, simply to buy time.
"I just don't think there's a good system out there yet," Paull said.
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