A new way to vote

Optical scanning devices to replace punch-card machines

BY JAMES WASHBURN
THE COURIER

New electronic voting machines slated to replace the punch-card voting system in the general election this November will be available for perusing at a few locations in the county during July.

Logan County Clerk Sally Litterly said she has arranged for one of the county's 29 new optical scan voting machines to be available for hands-on demonstrations at the Lincoln Public Library, July 12-16; the Elkhart Public Library, July 19-23; the Atlanta Public Library, July 20-24, and the Mount Pulaski Library, July 27-31.

She said demonstrations also will be available from now until late September in her office on the south side of the second floor of the Logan County Courthouse.

Boding that the machines will save the county time and money in future elections, Litterly encourages people to cast a sample ballot at one of the libraries or her office and make their own decision about the technological upgrade before election-time rolls around.

By taking advantage of the Help America Vote Act that President Bush signed in October 2002, the county was able to save more than $70,000 in the purchase and installation of the new machines.

The act enticed local voting districts to switch from the punch-card voting method to the optical scan method by offering $3,192 for each precinct within a county.

The machines, which cost $5,000 each, initially would have cost the county more than $220,000, but trustees in several townships, including East Lincoln, West Lincoln, Mount Pulaski and Atlanta, eliminated a number of polling places to generate a considerable savings, Litterly has said.

East Lincoln will provide five polling places instead of 12; West Lincoln will reduce its polling facilities from 11 to five; Mount Pulaski will offer one rather than four; and Atlanta will cut its facilities from three to one.

Litterly and her staffers currently are preparing to mail letters to any registered voters affected by the polling changes to inform them of their new voting location.

The optical scanners allow voters to simply use a pencil to mark an oval next to the ballot ion they wish to vote for - or in some instances, against - rather than using a pen-like stylus to punch a hole in a ballot.

"It's going to be a great benefit," said Joanne Marlin, who tried out the new system for the first time Tuesday. "It's going to be easy for people to learn.

"It's so simple. It's definitely going to save a lot of time."

Marlin, who works as the Logan County Board's secretary, also has worked during elections making logs of precinct results as they were brought in by election judges to make sure they matched the final results.

"They'll have some bugs they'll probably have to work out, but they'll be minor," Marlin said. "It's just like anything else starting out."

Under the new system, once a voter marks his or her ballot, he will leave the polling booth and the ballot into the scanner, which will keep a running tally of election races as ballots are collected.

When a voter chooses to vote for more candidates than what the ballot asks the voter to decide, the vote is ruled an over-vote and becomes invalid.

A fewer number of over-votes and under-votes also can be expected since the machines will ask the voter whether he intended to over-vote or under-vote.

If a voter accidentally fails to vote for a section because he has overlooked it, the scanner will ask the voter if he would like the ballot back to complete it.

Over-votes are handled similarly - except the voter will need to pick up a new ballot from an election judge.

A Republican and a Democrat election judge will continue to share the responsibility of returning the results of their facility and the machinery to the Logan County Courthouse, just as they did with the punch card method.

But because the new machines will keep a running tabulation of each race, the final precinct reports should come in much quicker once the judges return to the courthouse.