New voting machines ready for May ballot
Thursday, April 21, 2005
By Steve Neavling
Bay City Times

What looks like a tall printer, is a staple of democracy and has been called "our new baby?"

It's Bay County's new voting machine.

Voters on May 3 will cast ballots for school board members and other issues on new optical scan voting machines.
The 80 new machines - one for each voting precinct, plus a few extras - replace the optical scan equipment the county began using in the mid-1980s.

"The technology we used in the past is similar, but this is a new and improved version," said Bay County Clerk Cynthia Luczak. "We're really pleased with it."

Showing a machine to county commissioners last week, Luczak called it "our new baby."

The $448,800 worth of equipment won't cost the county a dime, thanks to a federal grant through the Help America Vote Act, which requires all states to replace outdated voting systems by the first federal election in 2006.

The county spent about $5,000 on a printer and computer to program the ballots and process the voting results, and another $5,000 to set up the machines and get training.

States are responsible for dispersing the federal funds to upgrade voting machines. So far, Michigan has spent $19.6 million on optical scan equipment for 68 of the state's 83 counties.

Michigan Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land wants all counties to use optical scan machines by 2006. Voters currently use five different systems, including punch-card and other paper-ballot voting machines.

The optical scan machines are easy to use and less prone to error and fraud, said Ken Silfven, spokesman for the Michigan Secretary of State.

"It's one of the most trusted systems in the country," Silfven said. "It's a technology that's easy to use and understand."

The most noticeable difference for Bay County voters will be the ballot. Voters will fill in ovals instead of connecting two parts of an arrow next to a candidate's name - as was done with the old machines.

The voter then will feed the marked ballot into the machine for tabulation. If it detects an error, it immediately spits out the ballot and alerts the voter of the mistake.

Next year a machine is expected to be available to voters who are hearing or sight impaired, bilingual, illiterate, arthritic or paralyzed. The touch-screen machines are part of a federal mandate to make all voting precincts handicap-accessible by the first national election in 2006.