Election commission wants to hear from voters on ballot procedures

By Rose Ann Pearce
The Morning News    15 May 2005

FAYETTEVILLE The Washington County Election Commission wants to hear from county voters before deciding on voting procedures to comply with a new federal law.

Commission Chairman John Logan Burrow said the Arkansas Secretary of State is asking counties to decide on the type of voting system to use so Arkansas meets the requirements of the Help America Vote Act by the federal election in 2006.

Burrow said the three-member election commission wants to hear voters' thoughts before responding to the Secretary of State, which has provided three options for the county to review.

The options range in cost from $280,000 to nearly $1.1 million to get Washington County compliant with the new law, which was passed by Congress after the debacle in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election.
  
The cost is not a concern for Washington County, Burrow said, because any new voting system would be funded by the state.

The concern centers on the county's ability to store, maintain, transport and program new machines before each election, Burrow said Friday after the election commission received the state's letter.

"We're very happy with the system we have," Burrow said. The county's voting system, using paper ballots, tabulated by electronic counters, was purchased as a result of a referendum in 1988 or 1990.

Of the three options, the system used by Washington County would not be fully compliant with the federal voting act unless the county also conducted a voter education program. The education program would focus on explaining to voters how to correct any error they made in balloting.
Burrow said his main question is the adequacy of a voter education program.

The Secretary of State's preferred option is a complete system of electronic voting costing about $1.1 million. Under this plan, one electronic voting machine to accommodate voters with disabilities would be installed at each of the county's 59 polling places.

The county also would have to install additional machines to accommodate turnout at a recommended ratio of one machine for each 200 voters. The advantage is tabulation at the precinct level. The voter can print a paper ballot to verify the ions before the final vote is tabulated.

The third alternate is a system using a paper ballot automatically recorded as it is fed into an optical scanner at each polling place. The cost of this option is $610,000.

Burrow said voters can attend a commission meeting at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Washington County Courthouse to learn more about each option.