Flagler ready for touch-screen machines

By AARON LONDON    Volusia and Flagler News Journal   June 17, 2005

 

PALM COAST Flagler County residents soon will be able to touch the future of voting.

The county is in final negotiations to buy 41 touch-screen voting machines as part of a state mandate for disabled-accessible voting.

The machines will cost $173,000, with part of the cost to be paid through a state grant, said Flagler County Supervisor of Elections Peggy Rae Border. Flagler County commissioners approved spending $29,000 for the machines in May, with the rest coming from the state grant.

"Now we are working on the contract," Border said. "I am hoping to have it ready for the board (of county commissioners) very quickly."

Border, like election supervisors across the Sunshine State, is facing a deadline to get the machines in place. Disabled-accessible machines must be available to voters for any election after July 1. Border said she expects to meet that deadline.

"I don't see any problems as far as compliance," she said. "But we have training to do."

Volusia County officials narrowly killed a contract to buy the machines earlier this month.

County Council members expressed concerns over the lack of a paper trail, as well as plans by Volusia Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall to use the touch-screen machines for early voting, not just as an alternative for disabled voters.

Volusia County Councilman Art Giles said he was concerned about the use of the new machines after reading about various problems with electronic voting, including one that led to a recent proposal in Miami-Dade County to replace the county's touch screens with optical scan systems.

Border said her office has been working with training manuals from the manufacturer to prepare for the machines' arrival.

"Sometimes we change the format of the manuals to make it very simple," she said.

Border said training staff and poll workers is an ongoing part of her job.

"Just like when we got the Accuvote machines in, we'll do as many classes as we feel is necessary," she said, referring to the voting machines currently used in Flagler.

After hearing of Border's progress at purchasing the equipment, Flagler Beach resident Gladys Stimson said she is all for the new voting machines.

"If it's going to straighten the elections out, sure I am for them," she said Thursday as she waited to load groceries into her minivan outside the Winn-Dixie market on State Road 100.

Stimson said having machines accessible to those with disabilities is a good thing.

"They need their privacy," she said. "Certainly they have their own opinions."

Unlike the situation in Volusia County, Border said she has not received many complaints about the touch-screen machines. Opponents of the system say the machines do not provide a paper trail of voting.

"I have had three or four calls," Border said. "Only one person had a concern about the paper trail, so I explained it to them. Sometimes people think we are completely changing out the voting system, but we're still going to have our optical scan machines."

Border said voters will have a choice of using either an optical scan ballot or the new touch-screen machines.

"Most of the people have been very satisfied with the new machine," Border said. "I encourage them to all come in and try it when the get here."

DID YOU KNOW?

The use of touch-screen voting machines is fairly new, but paper ballots were used 2,000 years ago by the ancient Romans.

The practice of using paper ballots did not become widespread until the mid-19th century, after an election held in Victoria, Australia, used a standardized ballot form.

? The ballot included all the candidates and allowed voters to mark their choice directly on the ballot.

? Known as the "Australian ballot," it would not be until the late 1880s that these paper ballots gained wide use in the United States.

? New York and Massachusetts were the first states to use the Australian ballot.

SOURCE: glencoe.com