Commissioners recommend voting-machine option to state
Northwest Arkansas' News Source. 14 June 2005. By Serina Wilkins Staff Writer

BENTON COUNTY ? New state-mandated voting machines should arrive in Benton County by early December.

The county uses punch-card ballots in all elections but must change voting machines to comply with the Help America Vote Act.

County election commissioners held a public meeting Friday afternoon in Bentonville to help decide the best option to fit the county?s voting needs.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels sent election commissioners three solutions for replacing the county?s voting machines. The county?s response must be returned to the Secretary of State?s Office by Wednesday.

Following are the three voting machine solutions:

? Solution A ?optical scan machines;

? Solution B ? fully electronic voting machines;

? Solution C ? voting machines with central tabulation on paper ballots.

The Secretary of State?s Office?s solutions include partially or fully funding the voting machines from $368,000 to $1.6 million.

On a touch-screen machine, voters vote by touching a screen, pushing a button or turning a dial to indicate their votes on the machine. On an optical scan machine, voters mark a paper ballot that is placed into an optical scan unit that reads and records the votes. The central tabulation voting machine is closely linked to the punch-card system that the county presently uses. This voting machine requires voters to manually mark answers on a paper ballot.

Daniels asked county election commissioners to list their solution choices in order of preference.

The county?s first choice was Solution C, which includes the state paying $368,000 to purchase voting machines for each voting precinct. The Secretary of State?s Office will fully fund Solution C at no additional cost to the county.

Plus, Solution C will cost the county less money per election and for maintenance.

The county?s second choice was Solution B, and Solution A was commissioners? third choice.

The final decision will be made by the secretary of state. Daniels is scheduled to make a decision in October.

In a letter to commissioners, Benton County Clerk Mary Lou Slinkard wrote that she prefers Solution B, which would have voting done electronically on machines.

The downfall of Solution B is that it is not completely state or federally funded, and the county would have to pay almost $2 million to implement the new system.

Election commissioners received letters from the community urging the county to choose Solution C. Cathy Bolte, Election Commission sheriff for a Rogers precinct, urged the county not to choose electronic voting machines because some poll workers fear computer-type technology.

Justice of the Peace for District 8 Tim Summers of Bentonville attended Friday?s public hearing. Summers is chairman of the Benton County Finance Committee, which helps set the county?s budget. Summers will rely on the election commissioners? recommendation.

Training poll workers is a key issue on deciding how to replace the county?s voting machines, Summers said. The county needs a voting system that is user friendly, he added.

In October 2004, the state Help America Vote Planning Committee endorsed a plan by Daniels to put optical scan voting equipment in all the counties, with one touch-screen voting machine at each polling site.

Daniels has outlined that the state plans to fully convert 13 punch-and-lever machine counties and nine handcount-paper-ballot counties before the preferential primary on May 23, 2006.

Benton County must have one of the state-approved voting machines in place before the first federal election of 2006. The county has 96,612 registered voters and approximately 80 polling sites.