Officials choose voting system

By OLIVIA COBISKEY   The Holland Sentinel   25 January 2005
Staff writer

Allegan County will be getting a new countywide voting system.

Township and city clerks have recommended that the county purchase AccuVote optical scanning voting machines from Diebold, a Canton, Ohio-based company. The county will spend $204,422 for 43 systems, placing all precincts on the same voting system. Each system costs $4,754 and includes a tabulator, ballot box, carrying case and two memory cards, said Michelle Herman, Account Manager for Fidlar Election Co., who presented the AccuVote to the clerks.

"We put a package together for the state," Herman said. "If they were paying for each item separately it would be more costly."

 
The systems are covered by a federal grant that includes a three-year service contract.

"Unifying makes it possible for the clerks to respond to any election day problems," said Allegan County Clerk Joyce Watts.

Watts contends that by being able to respond to crisis in a timely manner and making sure every vote counts clerks can encourage more people to vote.

"So voters know their vote counts," she said. "The integrity of the election (process) is closely tied to that perception."

The county opted to remain with an optical scan system, instead of going with a newer touch screen system. An optical scan system requires voters to color in an oval or arrow next to a candidate's name. A scanner reads the marks and tabulates votes, printing vote totals for clerks at the end of the election.

"You'll never hold it up to the light to see if it's pregnant," Watts said.

An optical scan system makes it easier to do recounts than a touch screen system, which does not produce paper copies of individual ballots, Watts said.

Allegan County currently uses 38 AccuVote systems, which will be used as backups for the new system, Watts said.

County municipal clerks ed AccuVote over voting systems from ES&S, and Sequoia, both of which are used in West Michigan. The city of Holland uses ES&S systems. The city of South Haven uses Sequoia systems.