High tech unlikely for Kalamazoo voters this year

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Kalamazoo voters probably will continue to use the punch-card election system during the August primary and the November general election.

City election officials are debating whether to opt out of an optical-scan system that the rest of Kalamazoo County is planning to use during this year's elections.

"We haven't made a final decision yet, but it looks like we will opt out and use the punch card," said Stephen French, Kalamazoo city clerk. "There is a whole lot of training we have to do, not only with staff, but election workers."

With an optical-scan voting system, voters indicate their ballot choices by coloring in small ovals placed next to candidates' names.

A secrecy sleeve protects the integrity of the ballot as it is fed into a tabulator at the polling place. If a ballot is filled out incorrectly, it is kicked out of the system and the error is indicated to polling officials and caught immediately.

The ballot can be voided and a new one can be issued to a voter.

Michigan communities are looking to use the optical-scan voting system after Congress passed the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which required communities to voting equipment and make it more accessible to people with disabilities.

The act was in response to problems that Florida voters encountered using a punch-card voting system during the 2000 presidential election.

French said state officials have been delayed in choosing approved vendors for counties to use to purchase optical-scan equipment. He fears that by the time that process is completed, there won't be sufficient time to train election workers.

"I really want to do this well," French said. "I'm interested in the new system, but I just worry about having it done wrong and then having to backpedal."

He predicts city voters won't use optical-scan equipment until the 2005 city elections.

"It doesn't matter what system you run an election on as long as you run it correctly," French said.

Kalamazoo County Clerk Tim Snow said he expects the rest of the county's 19 municipal units that handle elections to go with the optical-scan system.

Officials in Portage and in Oshtemo, Texas and Kalamazoo townships have indicated they will use the system. Parchment has been the only local municipality to use the optical voting system. It has been in place there for the past eight years.

Snow serves on a state committee charged with ing vendors for the new voting equipment. He said up to three vendors will likely be chosen by the end of the month.

"There will be sufficient training time allotted," he said.

The new voting systems are being funded with federal dollars. About a third of Michigan's 5,305 voting precincts are expected to switch from punch-card voting systems, lever machines and paper ballots.