Election computer system isn't ready

Less than a week before the biggest vote in King County history, the county elections office is still relying on a 12-year-old computer system to manage its voter-registration files, despite having spent $2.5 million to replace it.

King County and Global Election Systems of McKinney, Texas, were supposed to have installed a new election-management system by 1999. But problems customizing programs to meet the county's needs, and numerous elections that kept vendors and elections offices busy, have delayed the project's completion, now scheduled for the middle of next year.

But unlike other troubled computer projects at the county, officials will not see any additional costs from the delays. The county signed a $4.3 million fixed-cost contract with Global Election Systems for a voter-registration and tabulation system. That means the vendor has to deliver for that amount. King County has already paid 60 percent of the contract.

So far, only the system that counts votes and delivers totals is online. It has been used in a dozen elections without any problems. It will be put to the test this year. With 84 percent of the more than 1 million voters in King County expected to turn out Tuesday, the election will be the largest ever conducted in the state's largest county.

The voter-registration portion of the system is about 85 percent complete. The remaining 15 percent mostly deals with desktop screens and other forms used by election workers to handle registration information.

The new system would make processing registration faster and would make keeping track of the information easier. All of the registration material would be in one system rather than on four different computers.

Bob Bruce, manager of records and elections at King County, said elections have also delayed work on the system, since both the vendor and King County officials have to put work aside to run the elections. Between primaries, general and special elections, they have only about five months in the year to work on the system.

The county's election procedures also turned out to be more complicated than previously thought, but Robert Urosevich, president of Global Election Systems, said every new system has issues getting tailored to the needs of a customer, and what's happened in King County is "nothing, quite frankly, that's earth shattering."

Even though Global Election Systems will take on costs caused by the delays, Urosevich expects the company to make a profit.

In the meantime, the county will continue to use its 12-year-old blend of systems.

"It's fairly reliable, old, and not very flexible," Bruce said.

But it probably won't be to blame for delays in reporting the results of any close races on Tuesday night. The more likely culprit is the record number of absentee voters. The county has already mailed out 440,000 absentee ballots. Only about one-third of those returned will be counted on election night, and the results of close races may not be known until a week after the election.

------------------------------------------------------------

Absentee-ballot information

You can still get an absentee ballot by applying in person at the elections office, King County Administration Building, 500 Fourth Ave., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow; from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday. Absentee ballots must be postmarked on or before Nov. 7 to be eligible.

For more information, contact the King County Elections Office at 206-296-VOTE.