Caroline voters to go digital

As advent of touch-screen voting raises concerns, Caroline residents will try out the new technology in Tuesday's presidential primary

By CONOR REILLY
Date published: 2/9/2004

Voters in Caroline County will try out a new way to vote when they go to the polls in tomorrow's Democratic presidential primary.

County officials are hoping the touch-screen machines won't touch off a controversy.

Caroline will be using a system called WINvote, which allows voters to cast their ballot by touching a computer screen. It's the same model that malfunctioned during the Fairfax County elections in November.

"There's nothing wrong with the machines," Caroline Voter Registrar Roger Edwards said. "The problem in Fairfax was that there were 10 units plugged into one outlet."

The change in Caroline was mandated by a new federal law passed after the hanging-chad debacle of the 2000 presidential election. The Help America Vote Act requires localities with punch-card voting machines to replace them with computerized ones by 2006.

But the new machines haven't put an end to election disputes.

Rita Thompson, assistant dean of admissions at Mary Washington College, thinks technical difficulties with some machines may have cost her a seat on the Fairfax County School Board. She lost the race by 1 percent.

Ten of the county's 1,000 machines experienced problems. A Republican committee formed to investigate the matter called the machines "a technological and procedural failure."

"I think this is a real issue," Thompson said. "This is becoming our country's nightmare."

Thompson advocates what some in the Virginia Senate want to requirea paper printout of each vote from the new machines.

Sens. Ken Cuccinelli and Jeannemarie Devolites, both R-Fairfax County, have introduced bills to require voting machines to come equipped with a printer to provide a paper record of each vote cast.

To combat any possible malfunctions, Advanced Voting Solutions, the manufacturer of the WINvote machines, will send four technicians to Caroline tomorrow.

"They should take care of any problems that arise," Edwards said.

Caroline is simply testing the machines to determine whether it wants to buy them. The county needs 40; the federal government will pay for 16two for each precinct.

Edwards keeps a new voting machine, which looks like a computer without a keyboard, in his office and has been inviting residents to try it out.

"Everybody liked it," he said of people's reactions to the device.

Other area counties still need to upgrade their voting machines under the HAVA legislation.

Culpeper County will be testing new touch-screen voting systems in town elections in May. If they prove successful, all precincts will be fitted with them in November, said James Holmes, secretary of the county's Electoral Board.

Holmes said Culpeper did not consider employing the WINvote machines used in Fairfax and Caroline because of the problems they caused. Instead, it will use the Patriot Voting System manufactured by Unilect Corp.

The difficulties that Fairfax experienced "should not take place in this system," Holmes said.

Spotsylvania County must its voting machines, too, but will not be using new equipment for this election, Voter Registrar Shirley Boggs said.

"After this election, we'll be looking [for new voting systems] more seriously," Boggs said.

Some localities use HAVA-compliant voting systems already, but lack d handicapped-accessible booths required by the government.

Stafford County plans to its handicapped-accessible voting machines sometime in the future, after the General Assembly decides on the paper-record bills.

"We're waiting until the dust settles," Stafford Voter Registrar Ray Davis said.