WA County Sticks With Optical Scanners, Plus Touchscreen for Disabled Voters
NCVV: Oh well, we did what we could to inform these people for three years. At the very least when the scanners fail there will be a paper ballot to hand count, if it's detected.
County decides to stick with pencil-and-paper voting method
BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/story/nwat/28341
Washington County voters will continue to cast their ballots on paper and will still be able to watch their election commissioners count those ballots on a scanner at the county courthouse on election nights, following a unanimous vote by Election Commissioners on Thursday.
Commissioners voted to add one electronic voting machine at each of the 59 polling places in the county to be available to persons with disabilities. That machine, along with a required voter education program, will help the county meet minimum requirements of the Help America Vote Act, according to information from the office of the Secretary of State.
Most
of the county’s 80,000 registered voters will vote as they have in the past, on paper ballots. However, any voter may use the electronic voting machine, according to material from the Secretary of State’s office.
Cost of the new machines will be picked up by the State of Arkansas. The Secretary of State’s office is in the process of drafting a Request For Proposal for machines in all 75 counties, based on information submitted by each county,.
Commissioners could have voted to install an optical scanner at each polling site along with an accessible electronic voting machine. The cost of that solution for Washington County was estimated to be $610,000.
Another solution, adopting a full system of electronic voting throughout the county, was estimated to cost $1,056,000.
Washington County commissioners chose the least expensive of the three options with an estimated cost to the state of $280,000. Their option meets the minimum HAVA requirements, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Commissioners Tom Lundstrom and Pete Loras explained their support of the current voting system.
Lundstrom said he likes to see the public at the courthouse on election night. "I would hate to give up the involvement of the public by coming to the courthouse, watching us count the ballots. We’re all accountable in front of God and everybody. Right here. If there’s a problem, you see it. If it goes great, you see it," he said.
Lundstrom concluded, "It’s always been this commission’s position that we’re not really all that worried about the media or some candidate insisting that they have results by 10 o’clock at night. We count the ballots, we count them right and the results will come when they come."
Burrow asked Rob Hammons of the Secretary of State’s office about the education program required with the option they chose. Hammons explained that the state is waiting for federal guidelines before decisions are made.
Lundstrom asked, "Frankly, how difficult is it to hand somebody a ballot and say, ‘Take your pencil and circle in one person per race’?"
The county’s scanners, he said, are sensitive; but any problems, in his opinion, are not due to the machines. "The problem is people who, like last year’s presidential race, we had four or six people qualify for our ballot. They vote for three of them or six of them. I mean, why do they even bother to show up? I don’t know how you educate somebody just not to be stupid."
After the commissioners’ vote, County Clerk Karen Combs Pritchard inquired about the possibility of money from the state for more or other machines in five or six years as the number of voters increase.
Hammons said there was no such guarantee. Money left over from the counties may go into a pool to be divided among the counties based on a formula not yet determined.
After hearing the discussion of money, commissioners said they would not change their votes, and Burrow indicated after the meeting that the vote is final. "Washington County is going to do nothing but grow, grow, grow," Combs Pritchard said after the meeting. She explained her concern is that the county may need more voting machines in the not-too-distant future and there will not be money available from the state for purchase.
Copyright © 2001-2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
County decides to stick with pencil-and-paper voting method
BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/story/nwat/28341
Washington County voters will continue to cast their ballots on paper and will still be able to watch their election commissioners count those ballots on a scanner at the county courthouse on election nights, following a unanimous vote by Election Commissioners on Thursday.
Commissioners voted to add one electronic voting machine at each of the 59 polling places in the county to be available to persons with disabilities. That machine, along with a required voter education program, will help the county meet minimum requirements of the Help America Vote Act, according to information from the office of the Secretary of State.
Most
of the county’s 80,000 registered voters will vote as they have in the past, on paper ballots. However, any voter may use the electronic voting machine, according to material from the Secretary of State’s office.
Cost of the new machines will be picked up by the State of Arkansas. The Secretary of State’s office is in the process of drafting a Request For Proposal for machines in all 75 counties, based on information submitted by each county,.
Commissioners could have voted to install an optical scanner at each polling site along with an accessible electronic voting machine. The cost of that solution for Washington County was estimated to be $610,000.
Another solution, adopting a full system of electronic voting throughout the county, was estimated to cost $1,056,000.
Washington County commissioners chose the least expensive of the three options with an estimated cost to the state of $280,000. Their option meets the minimum HAVA requirements, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Commissioners Tom Lundstrom and Pete Loras explained their support of the current voting system.
Lundstrom said he likes to see the public at the courthouse on election night. "I would hate to give up the involvement of the public by coming to the courthouse, watching us count the ballots. We’re all accountable in front of God and everybody. Right here. If there’s a problem, you see it. If it goes great, you see it," he said.
Lundstrom concluded, "It’s always been this commission’s position that we’re not really all that worried about the media or some candidate insisting that they have results by 10 o’clock at night. We count the ballots, we count them right and the results will come when they come."
Burrow asked Rob Hammons of the Secretary of State’s office about the education program required with the option they chose. Hammons explained that the state is waiting for federal guidelines before decisions are made.
Lundstrom asked, "Frankly, how difficult is it to hand somebody a ballot and say, ‘Take your pencil and circle in one person per race’?"
The county’s scanners, he said, are sensitive; but any problems, in his opinion, are not due to the machines. "The problem is people who, like last year’s presidential race, we had four or six people qualify for our ballot. They vote for three of them or six of them. I mean, why do they even bother to show up? I don’t know how you educate somebody just not to be stupid."
After the commissioners’ vote, County Clerk Karen Combs Pritchard inquired about the possibility of money from the state for more or other machines in five or six years as the number of voters increase.
Hammons said there was no such guarantee. Money left over from the counties may go into a pool to be divided among the counties based on a formula not yet determined.
After hearing the discussion of money, commissioners said they would not change their votes, and Burrow indicated after the meeting that the vote is final. "Washington County is going to do nothing but grow, grow, grow," Combs Pritchard said after the meeting. She explained her concern is that the county may need more voting machines in the not-too-distant future and there will not be money available from the state for purchase.
Copyright © 2001-2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
posted by NCVV AR at 8:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home