Island County's punch cards are ditched but not the polls

Everett Herald     17 May 2005

COUPEVILLE - Chads will soon be gone in Island County but polling places will stay, county Auditor Suzanne Sinclair said Monday.

Federal rules require the county to stop using punch card ballots by Jan. 1, and conducting elections entirely by mail ballot would satisfy that mandate.

Sinclair said she isn't ready to propose closing the county's handful of polling places on Camano and Whidbey islands.

"Right now people who go to the polls really like to go to the polls," she said.

In November, nearly 70 percent of the votes were cast by mail, Sinclair said. That number is expected to increase in the future.

"At some point the percentage at the polls will , and we can talk about it then," she said.

The county is gearing up to buy new vote tabulating machines that could be in polls for the election in November. A request for proposals will be sent to prospective vendors in a couple of weeks.

Sinclair estimated the county will spend $150,000 on machines that will read ballots using optical or digital technology.

Additionally, the federal Help America Vote Act requires the county to provide one touch-screen voting machine per poll site to serve disabled voters. That will cost another $50,000, though Sinclair expects to obtain federal grants to cover the expense.