Volusia gets OK for municipal elections

Staff Report    NewsJournal   June 15, 2005

Despite the County Council's rebellion against touch-screen voting machines, Volusia is in the clear as far as state Division of Elections is concerned for the time being, at least.

But the future of a different option favored by touch-screen opponents is murky.

In a conference call, representatives of the Division of Elections reiterated to county officials that they won't hold up municipal elections in October, county officials confirmed.

Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall raised that concern when the council refused to buy touch-screen machines to meet a state deadline for disabled accessibility.

Still, whether the county will be able to use alternate equipment wanted by activists who prefer a paper ballot is unclear.

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood, said, if the system, known as AutoMARK, is certified for use in Florida, the county can buy it but it may not be compatible with Volusia's current system.

She acknowledged that could depend on AutoMARK's access to information owned by Diebold Election Systems, which maintains the county's paper ballot system. That's not for the state to decide.

A Diebold spokesman, David Bear, said sharing information wasn't on the table.

"We've not moved into discussion of, as competitors, working the two systems together," he said.

County Chairman Frank Bruno said he didn't want to put the "cart before the horse" but would consider switching to another optical scan system that would work with AutoMARK to guarantee a voter-verifiable paper record.

Either way, he said he knows the county must be in compliance after a Jan. 1 federal deadline.