Receipt negates 'hanging chad' worry
Thursday, July 21, 2005
By Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg
Gloucester County Times

Voters who cast ballots on electronic machines like the ones used in Gloucester County will get a receipt under a bill signed into law by Acting Gov. Richard Codey.

To avoid the "hanging chad" problems Florida faced in the 2000 election, the federal Help America Vote Act set a January 2006 deadline to replace formerly unreliable voting systems with voter-friendly machines, as well as to make the machines more accessible for the disabled in each polling place.

As a result, more states moved toward acquiring Direct Recording Electronic machines which use a memory card to store votes. But some groups wanted to see a paper trail for these electronic systems to prevent a repeat of Florida and make sure the "vote on the screen is the vote that comes out the back" said Doug Chapin, an attorney with a background in election issues and director of Electionline.org, an election reform Web site. 
 

Elections are no longer a "black box," Chapin said. "People, law and technology play a role. New Jersey has been looking at these issues for some while."

Gloucester County's five-year-old electronic machines will not need replacement to comply with the new law.

The existing machines "can be retrofitted and set up with the required system," said County Clerk James Hogan.

Hogan called the receipt system "another reaction to the Florida election debacle."

While additional training would be required of poll workers who operate the machines to learn what to do in case the paper jams or another issue arises during voting, Hogan does not anticipate that the changes will affect the voter.

County Board of Elections Chairman Ted Bradley said state election officials "felt it was necessary" to have a receipt system implemented, but Gloucester County is "not capable at this point" of having the system in place.

He has some concerns that could come with the paper receipt system such as getting jammed on voting days.

"It's the law and we have to do it," Bradley said. "We will work out the details. We will make it work, whatever it takes to work."

Hogan said he is not sure "what the cost will be per unit" to retrofit the approximately 520 AVC Advantage machines in the county.

However, a spokesperson for a voting machine company Sequoia Voting Systems said the receipt component under development would likely be in the $2,000 range or less to outfit each voting machine with a roll of paper under glass allowing the voter to see who they voted for and confirm the vote.