DeLand touch-screen is only choice on deadline

Orlando Sentinel

Posted March 4, 2005
It is unlikely that Volusia County will get special ballot-marking devices for disabled people after all.

Instead, Volusia County Election Supervisor Ann McFall said Thursday she wants permission from the County Council next week to purchase or lease 210 touch-screen voting systems the devices currently certified for use in Florida for disabled and nondisabled individuals.

McFall said she would rather get the AutoMARK ballot-marking devices to use with Volusia's existing optical-scan system because touch-screens won't create or mark a paper ballot, and she realizes some people might have concerns about the lack of paper ballots.

But McFall said state certification of AutoMARK machines appears unlikely in time for her to meet a state deadline of July 1 to have at least one machine for a disabled person to vote independently at each polling location.

"I have no alternative," McFall said.

AutoMARK doesn't record votes as the touch-screen machines do but instead marks the same kind of ballots used by other voters, which is considered an advantage in the event of recounts.

Last year, County Council members authorized spending nearly $1 million to purchase nearly 200 AutoMARK machines pending state certification.

On Thursday, McFall will ask council members to rescind that vote and instead authorize negotiations to purchase or lease 210 touch-screen machines from Diebold Election Systems, which is the company that services Volusia's voting system.

The touch-screens will likely cost less than the AutoMARK devices, though McFall said she didn't have an exact figure yet. Lake County is among the 15 of 67 counties in Florida that use touch-screen voting machines. The other counties, including Volusia, use optical scanners that read paper ballots marked by voters.

Both AutoMark devices and touch-screen machines and can be configured with an "audio ballot" and headphones, allowing blind people to vote independently.