Sumter County is lone punch-card ballot user in November

JACOB JORDAN

Associated Press   22 August 2004

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Every South Carolina county that once used punch-card ballots is on track to have their election systems d in time for the Nov. 2 election - except Sumter County.

Officials there have said there's not enough time to make the switch to electronic touch-screen voting machines for the general election, which means the county will continue to use the same ballots that caused turmoil during the 2000 presidential election.

Ten counties in South Carolina will dump the ballots that caused the infamous hanging chads and pregnant chads in Florida four years ago. Those counties - Aiken, Anderson, Cherokee, Florence, Greenville, Kershaw, Lexington, Oconee, Spartanburg and York - officially were set to begin working with the new systems Monday.

The change is welcomed by most election officials, even though some throughout the state said they've never had problems like those that tied up the 2000 race for the White House.

"We know how to use punch cards. We're very good at it," Sumter County Election Commission member Carol Ann Rogers said. "We can put on a very fair and honest election, and that's what we're tasked to do. ... That's our job, to put on an election."

Sumter has been criticized for being the holdout county, but Rogers said commission members felt forced to make the switch "in a time-crunch situation."

The conversion to electronic machines has been tied up until recently because questions were raised over how a state contract was awarded and how the machines work. Those issues were seemingly solved earlier this month when the roughly $30 million contract went to Electronic Systems & Software, and the state attorney general ruled the machines don't have to provide a voter proof on paper that the vote was cast.

"That started backing everything up," Rogers said. "All of the sudden we realized, 'Well, we're probably not going to go with the electronic machines because time is becoming of the essence.'"

While counties have been waiting, some already have received demo machines from the company and will begin meeting with officials Monday in Columbia. Some also seem energized by the challenge of implementing a new system in about two months.

"We're pretty excited about it," said Patsy Brown, director of voter registration and elections in Anderson County, which has been using the punch-card ballots since 1986. "We're trying to make our plans on training the public on the use of the equipment and make arrangements to train all of our pollworkers."

Anderson, with more than 88,000 registered voters, isn't alone.

"We haven't started anything really," said Cherokee County elections director Suzanne Turner.

Some pollworkers are looking forward to the new system, while other are nervous, she said. "But I think once they see the machines and see how easy it will be for them, I think they'll be fine," said Turner, who has about 27,000 registered voters and will be using 146 machines.

While some counties are enthusiastic, there's resistance to change in Sumter, said Marci Andino, executive director of the State Election Commission.

"We're very disappointed," she said, conceding it's not the recommended time to do the conversion. "Sumter is going to be the lone county that uses punch cards."

The county's election commission recently voted 5-1 against the switch, surprising state election officials who said eliminating the punch-card ballots were a priority in conforming to the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The act requires that polling places nationwide replace punch-card voting systems and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act by 2006.

The federal government offered incentive money to those states willing to convert earlier. With Sumter opting out, the county will lose about $185,000 of incentive funds. The money was part of about $46.5 million the federal government gave South Carolina to upgrade its systems. The state matched the federal funds with $2.1 million.

South Carolina will return the $185,000, Andino said, and when Sumter decides to upgrade its system, the local government may be responsible for raising that money.

"They took the incentive money assuming that all ... counties would convert easily, without a whimper," Rogers said. "We looked at this and said, 'We're not going to do this.'"