Harvard Helps Cambridge Count Up the City's Votes

Shortly after polling places closed Tuesday night, 55 patrol cars delivered Cambridge residents' 42.451 completed ballots to Harvard's Office of Information Technology (OIT) to be tabulated for the first time ever by OIT's computers.

By 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, Harvard had Cambridge's election results ready-three hours earlier than the figures used to be settled by election workers counting paper ballots.

Over the fall, Cambridge replaced its paper-ballot voting system with a new punch-card that can be read by computer. "We didn't have to find a small army of people to assist the operation, and those who worked in the day could go home at a reasonable hour," explained Election Commissioner Sondra Scheir. "The returns were also available at a far earlier hour than in the past.

"It was becoming increasingly difficult to find personnel to stay (to tally up the votes). Many women who used to be the backbone of this operation are now working. We had to adjust to the changes in the real world," added Scheir.

Helpful Harvard

This summer Cambridge asked OIT to process the ballots because "Harvard has the fastest high-speed reader in the city," and can process 1000 punched cards perminute, Scheir added.

Voters used a stylus-like instrument to punch out boxes for as many as 235 candidates or referenda. After the polls closed, the cards were taken to OIT where they were fed into a card reader that tabulated the votes.

Unfortunately, the tabulations ran into unforeseen delays, and the results were not final until 1:30 a.m., four later than expected Computing Center Manager Peter J. Heffernan said OIT's card reader got fouled up because of the poor condition of some of the cards. "Some of the cards had been folded or bent," said Heffernan. "They had to be smoothed out before the reader would accept them."

Despite the delays, however, OIT and Cambridge Election Commission of ficials called the operation successful. "We felt it was a very smooth election day. We were pleased at how easily people adapted," Scheir said.

Not For City Elections

Scheir said Cambridge will use punch card balloting for all upcoming federal and state elections, but not city elections, where paper ballots will still be the rule. Cambridge uses the proportional voting system, whereby voters rank in order of preference the candidates on the ballot. "It is a more complicated ballot." Scheir said. "The city council won't agree to [punch card ballots] until they see the system is successful for other elections."

Installing the punch-card system cost about $60,000, but will save the city an estimated $20,000 per cent election, Scheir said.

OIT's Herffernan said, "We were pleased to help but somewhat disappointed with the problems of the ballots." Added Scheir, "A new system always has little bugs."