Panel on balloting change is named
Clark County hopes the new advisory committee can plan a conversion from punch cards in time for September voting
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
BILL STEWART   The Oregonian

VANCOUVER Clark County hopes to switch from punch-card ballots to an optical-scan system in time for September's primary. 
 Auditor Greg Kimsey started the change Tuesday by appointing 15 members to an advisory committee. A first meeting has not been scheduled.

The change is required by a federal law passed after Florida's punch-card-ballot debacle in the 2000 presidential election. The law says counties can other systems, but punch cards must be abandoned. New systems must be in use by November 2006.

Kimsey estimated the county will pay $3 million to convert to a scanning system, in which voters use a pencil to darken an oval or complete a partial arrow pointing to a candidate's name. The county also will add a separate touch-screen voting system for disabled people at each precinct, but it has not decided how many polling places will be retained.

The advisory committee is composed of four Democrats, four Republicans and seven at-large members.

"This will be a truly advisory committee," said Kimsey, who will be chairman of the committee. "After its input, the actual decision will be made by the county staff."

Tim Likness, county elections supervisor, will also be on the committee.

Kimsey said he has mixed feelings about dumping punch cards.

"In the six years I have been in office, two or three people have complained about punch cards, but that system has been supported by hundreds of comments," he said.

Multnomah County switched to optical scanning years ago, according to elections spokesman Eric Sample. He said the result has been good.

Washington County, also to comply with the federal law, converted from punch cards in 2003, said Mickie Kawai, Washington County elections manager.

"The only problem is that optical scanning is much slower than punch cards, and optical ballots can be damaged in the mail."

All Oregon voting is now by mail, while about 65 percent of Clark County residents vote as permanent absentees, using ballots returned by mail.

Kawai said Washington County purchased five optical-scan machines for about $45,000 each.

"They are rated as counting 500 ballots per minute apiece, but the ballots must be pristine," she said. "I don't know their actual speed, but it is less than 500 because the ballots must be inspected and then lined up to be read by the machines."

She said the punch-card readers are supposed to count 1,000 ballots a minute.