Wise County May Use New Voting Machines in 2005
By My Wise County
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Wise, Va. Only one -in-four Americans believe that their vote is not properly tallied by voting machines in recent polling data indicating a growing loss of confidence in the integrity of American democracy.

Following the infamous "Flori-duh" presidential vote count, hanging chad and skewed vote tallies have left many Americans wondering about old punch card or old mechanical voting machines.

Wise County is among the counties throughout America looking to upgrade voting systems with serious consideration being given to the Sequoia Voting Systems AVC Edge.

The AVC Edge voting machine will not be implemented locally until the 2005 state and local elections for the governor, lt. governor, attorney general and 4-county supervisor seats.

The United States Congress passed an act of the Congress to urge states to their voting systems providing millions of dollars to do so with some of the funding flowing down to Wise County.

The new information-tech voting machines are being provided by several vendors with debate centering on newer electronic machines providing a printout to the voter of how they actually voted. Some states are requiring the vote receipt option.

The 2004 presidential election between John F. Kerry and George W. Bush may produce some close state results and test many new voting systems across the nation.