Optical scan machines perform perfectly
By Walter Mares, news editor for the Eastern Arizona Courier

Yvonne Pearson and company passed with flying colors. Greenlee County's first election involving use of a new system came off without a hitch.

Pearson, Greenlee County's elections director, beamed as she answered questions from the county board of supervisors at its Thursday, Feb. 5, meeting. The board canvassed results from the Tuesday, Feb. 3, Democratic Presidential Preference Election (PPE).

All went well and the board approved the election results.

On Tuesday night, an exhausted Pearson and County Administrator Kay Gale finally took a break after all results were in. Pearson appeared almost too tired to smile, but there was no doubt she was pleased with the way the election ran.

Pearson and polling place workers prepared for and used a new voting system. It involves an optical scan machine called Accu-Vote. The system was far different from the punch card method Greenlee had used for about two decades. Pearson said that to everyone's delight, the system was user friendly and cut down on work for poll workers and for her.

The elections director said she received a great deal of positive feedback from poll workers who liked the system because it is so easy to use. She said voters also told workers they liked the system.

It involves using a felt-tipped pen to mark a circle by a candidate's name. If a person over-votes or makes an error, the Accu-Vote machine catches it and the ballot can be corrected by the voter.

Ballots are placed in a cardboard covering to protect privacy. The top of the ballot sticks out. The voter places his or her ballot in a slot in the Accu-check, which automatically grabs the ballot and slides into the machine.

Greenlee has eight pre-cincts, but only had four polling places for the Democratic PPE because of the small turnout. For this election alone, two Morenci precincts and two Clifton precincts were combined.

Polls were also located in York-Sheldon and in Duncan. Voters on Eagle Creek and the Blue, in remote northern Greenlee County, mailed in their ballots.

Pearson was at the courthouse after the polls closed at 7 p.m. The four polling sites with Accu-Votes had their results sent in by about 7:16 p.m. Results at each site were gathered on a card in the voting machine and telephonically transmitted to the courthouse.

Final results were not available until around 9 p.m. That was due to election workers having to count mail-in or early voting ballots by hand.

"There were no hitches at all," Pearson said. "Everything came through as it was supposed to. Everything balanced. It was great."

In the week prior to the election Pearson said she had spent hundreds of hours preparing for the election and studying the system. "I dreamt elections all night for two months."

She said election night would be akin to taking a final exam. She called it "the mother of all final exams."

"I passed it," she said after the election.

Pearson lauded election workers at the polls and county staff member Evelyn Carbajal. She said it was their dedication and attention to detail that were key in the election's success.

Supervisors also had praise for Pearson, who with Carbajal put together an election instructions manual for poll workers. Supervisors and Gale were impressed with the effort.

"On behalf of the board, I'd like to commend you for the great job you did," Chairman Hector Ruedas told Pearson.

"When I went in and voted it was so smooth," Supervisor Donald Stacey said. "It beats the heck out of punching those holes."

Gale said the county only had a short time frame in which to receive the machines, learn the system and train election workers.

"For as little time as they had to prepare for this and get it in place, they did a very good job," Gale said regarding Pearson and the election workers.

The machines were not received until December. Poll workers were trained in January.

The new system was mandated by federal elections officials after punch cards created havoc in Florida during the 2000 U.S. presidential race.

Pearson said that by 2006 Greenlee will have touch screens for voters and marking devices such as pens will be totally eliminated.