Pittsfield's new scanning machines tally votes with few kinks, no chads

By Jack Dew
Berkshire Eagle Staff

CORRECTION MARCH 4, 2004
Pittsfield City Clerk Jody Phillips toured polling places with a representative of LHS Associates, the company that sold the city its new optical scanner voting machines, manufactured by Diebold Inc. The affiliation of the representative was reported incorrectly in a story in yesterday's Eagle.

PITTSFIELD A slow trickle of voters headed to the polls yesterday in a lackluster turnout for the primary election in which the fate of both John Kerry and George W. Bush seemed a predetermined certainty.

More interesting than the election results themselves was the question of how voters would respond to the new machines being used for the first time in the city, as high-tech optical scanners replaced the behemoth voting machines that, with their levers and curtains, had been a comfortable, if clunky, fixture at Pittsfield polling places since the 1940s.

The new optical scanners and the new voting ritual they brought with them were greeted with a mixture of approval and concern. Voters signed in, were handed a paper ballot and directed to a booth, where they cast their votes by filling in ovals with a black pen. They were then steered to the scanners, where many tentatively offered their ballots to the machine's maw, only to jump slightly or laugh when it was whisked away with surprising force.

"You really feel like you voted!" said Irene McCluskey after the scanner whipped the ballot from her hands at Ward 5A yesterday afternoon. "I like it."

The completed paper ballots will be stored for at least 22 months after each election, giving the city ample opportunity to recount them by hand if a malfunction is detected in the scanners themselves. At the close of voting, the tallies are generated immediately by each machine, which prints the results on a piece of paper not unlike a cash register receipt.

City Clerk Jody Phillips spent the day touring polling places with a representative of Diebold Inc., the company that manufactured the scanners, who was on hand in case of a malfunction. Phillips said last night that there had been no problems with the machines.

"A few people asked why we had to change, and said they like the old machines, but I think that initial change for everybody is hard," Phillips said, confident the new equipment will be a success. "Other towns like Dalton and Adams have been using them for years."

The city bought the optical scanners for $97,000 and spent an additional $38,000 on the booths where the ballots are cast. Much of the expense will be reimbursed to Pittsfield through a federal grant administered by the state.

What complaints there were centered on the paper ballots, not the scanners. Many people said the print was too small and difficult to read, and that the ovals were hard to see. While the poll workers had a magnifying sheet the voters could use, few wanted them.

For voters who had never taken a standardized test, filling in the oval was a new and occasionally confusing experience. Some mistakenly put an "x" or a check mark in the spot. The scanner rejected those ballots, however, and the voters were allowed to recast them.

As a former teacher, Fran Lysonski, the warden at Ward 5A, is practiced at coaching people through the oval-filling experience and had drawn up her own signs showing how to cast the ballot properly. While Lysonski said she is grateful for the ease the scanners will bring to counting the votes at the end of the night, she said she has concerns that the longer process of signing in and signing out again will slow the process on a busy Election Day.

"It will be quicker the next time, when people are used to it, but it will still always take that extra step," Lysonski said.

Pauline Giacoletto, working at the Ward 3A polling place in the Providence Court apartments on East Street, agreed, predicting the lengthier process may lead to long lines on Election Day. "The fact that they have to check out is not going to be a good thing. I think it will make for a lot of stacked voters."

Turnout was predictably low at precincts throughout the city yesterday, and there was little visible enthusiasm as most people interviewed said they expected Kerry to cruise to an easy win in his home state. On the Republican ballot, Bush was unopposed, and the Green and Libertarian parties have no marquee names to lure supporters to the polls.

As the skies grew dark with the afternoon rain, John Harding was alone in front of Herberg Middle School, holding a blue Kerry sign and waiting for the trickle of voters to increase. "I've been getting a good response from people, but it has definitely been slow," he said.

Poll volunteer Elizabeth Geddes, working at Ward 6A in the Columbia Arms apartments, was dismayed by the weak turnout. As of 1:30 p.m., only 213 of the roughly 2,000 registered voters in Ward 6A had cast ballots.

"People don't realize that the primary is the most important voting, because then you have the widest choice of who you would like to see in office," Geddes said. "People don't realize it's very, very important."

Jack Dew can be reached at jdew@berkshireeagle.com.