New voting machines already obsolete
Federal Help America Vote Act may dictate change

By JAMES WENSITS
Tribune Political Writer

SOUTH BEND The possibility that St. Joseph County's new voting machines could be headed for the scrap heap loomed large Tuesday, thanks largely to the reality of new federal election laws.

The county commissioners adopted a resolution Tuesday that is the first step in adapting St. Joseph County polling places to rules established in the federal Help America Vote Act.

The measure, adopted in 2002, sets out rules for making all polling places accessible to voters with physical handicaps, including the blind and those who are wheelchair-bound.

County Commissioner President Mark Dobson, R-District 1, said that compliance is necessary in order to make the county eligible for federal reimbursements.

The county spent about $1.6 million on the optical-scan voting machines that were introduced to local voters a year ago in the May 2003 primary election.

Those machines replaced the old mechanical lever machines that were essentially outlawed by the Help America Vote Act.

The new voting machines, which automatically read and record paper ballots filled out by voters, were well-received by voters in both the spring and fall elections, and recorded the ballots cast in record times.

Those machines, however, do not meet the voting act requirement that each polling place have a voting machine in place that will "permit a voter who is blind or visually impaired to vote privately and independently."

To do that, the county will have to buy Direct Recording Electronic voting machines, also known as touch-screen machines, and have them in place by Jan. 1, 2006.

The touch-screen machines meet the voting act's standard because, unlike the optical-scan machines, they can be adapted for use by both the blind and the deaf.

County Commissioner Cindy Bodle, D-District 3, said it is possible that the county will pursue a trade-in option to exchange the optical-scan machines for the touch-screen units, but acknowledged that that move may not be possible.

Because the Help America Vote Act is a federal law, the touch-screen units will become the national standard and the optical-scan units will be regarded as obsolete technology.

Dobson said that voting legislation was not an issue when county officials decided to buy the optical-scan units.

"We did the right thing at the time," Dobson said, adding that the decision will "bite us in the butt" now.

County officials chose the optical-scan machines for a number of reasons, chief among them being that those machines create a paper backup in the event of a machine failure, something that the touch-screen units do not do.

It was also felt that each of the county's more than 230 polling places would need two of the touch-screen machines, compared with just one optical-scan unit.

County election officials have also discussed the possibility of simply adding one touch-screen unit to each polling place and continuing to use the optical-scan machines.

"I don't know what's really going to happen," Rita Glenn, county clerk, said Tuesday, agreeing that the nearly new voting machines are already "pretty much" obsolete.

Glenn said that the optical-scan machines will be used again this year, and noted that there are no elections scheduled for 2005.

That means the county has until 2006 to make any changes to polling places and buy new voting machines.

Glenn called the situation a "great big monkey weave," adding, "It's on our back and we can't get out of it."