Voting machines pass test in Vance
By MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN, Daily Dispatch Writer

If initial tests are an accurate indication, the brains behind Vance County elections are in working order.

But a state Board of Elections decision to use a standard ballot throughout North Carolina for the special congressional election seemed to do nothing to ease what promises be a tricky situation.

The county Board of Elections and its staff spent more than an hour Wednesday afternoon feeding test punchcard ballots through five of the county's 16 PBC III-D tabulator machines and checking the results. The counting machines print vote tallies on a paper ribbon, much like a calculator might produce.

Republican board member Ruby Lassiter remarked that Vance has used the tabulators for at least a decade.

"They've been trustworthy patriots," she said.

The intent of Wednesday's work was to test not just those five machines, but all 16 memories programmed by Election Systems & Software of Addison, Texas.

ES&S, which services the tabulators, used ballots provided by the county to prepare the black memory cartridges. Each is roughly the size and weight of a standard videocassette.

The only apparent glitch Wednesday is that the machines' clocks will have to be reset from Texas to North Carolina time. Elections Director Faye Gill said that will be one of her last tasks before the primary election.

On July 20, when each citizen has finished voting, he or she will lift the tall, thin punchcard from the voting tablet and feed the ballot into the tabulator. When polls close, each chief judge will print the vote tally, phone in the results and take voting materials back to the Board of Elections office at the Dennis Building in downtown Henderson.

Judges will carry the tabulator printout, the ballots themselves and other paperwork. The tabulators, however, will remain in place that night. The blue-and-tan machines, made by Business Records of Berkeley, Calif., are about 3 feet high and not very maneuverable despite their wheels.

On July 20, judges will have an additional responsibility: counting by hand the special election ballots that will help determine who will fill the 1st Congressional District seat until the new Congress is installed in January.

Gill told the board, in a brief meeting before tabulator testing began, that the state informed her that 8.5-by-11-inch paper ballots are to be used in the special election.

Vance County had asked to use 4.25-by-5.5-inch half-sheets, as are used in Kittrell and Middleburg elections. The emergency ballot boxes the county will employ for the special election are geared toward smaller sizes.

Because of the state's decision, Vance residents will have to fold their special elections ballots three or four times to stuff them through the slots in the tops of the unvarnished wooden boxes.

Democrat G.K. Butterfield, Republican Greg Dority and Libertarian Tom Eisenmenger are running for the House seat recently relinquished by Warrenton Democrat Frank Ballance.

Butterfield and Dority are also running in their party primaries for a shot at a full two-year term.

Officials and observers fear 1st District residents will be confused and not vote in both the special and primary elections.

The district encompasses a slice of Granville County that includes Oxford, most of Henderson, the northern half of Vance County, all of Warren County, and all or parts of 20 other counties to the east.

The confusing situation was one of the topics discussed at the brief board meeting.

But the major concern related to a preliminary request from a candidate whose name Gill and board members would not reveal.

The candidate wants the names of voters who cast ballots on Election Day. Gill was told other counties have agreed to provide such lists while polls are open.

The request appears to be legal, but local officials were not sure how to comply - especially if multiple campaigns ask for the same information.

Acting Board Chairman James Kearney shook his head during the discussion. "I think this is going to be too much," he said.

County election officials will consult with the state about the issue.

But the state Board of Elections has made its preference clear on another matter. Gill noted during the meeting that the state wants Vance to fill the vacancy on its three-member board before the primary.

Former Chairman Gary Frazier, a Democrat, was automatically unseated in April when his uncle, Republican Harold Frazier, entered the race for the 7th District in the state Senate.

Cornell Manning, the chairman of the county Democratic Party, said his executive committee will meet Monday afternoon and should forward two names to the state party. The state Board of Elections must approve the person who fills Frazier's vacancy on the local board.

The state also has ordered the county to take multiple photographs of local polling sites for posting to the Web. The state wants all of the pictures to be taken July 19.

Board members were daunted by the logistics involved in filling that requirement.

Kearney hit on a possible solution involving the yet-to-be-named board member.

"We'll tell him that the new member has to take all these pictures," he joked.