Clark: Voting Machines Will Include Printers

Associated Press    10 August 2005

Printers will be included with the new touch-screen voting machines many Mississippi counties are buying, and those printers will provide a paper trail to let people check how they vote, Secretary of State Eric Clark says.

"All Mississippians must have confidence that their votes are accurately counted,'' Clark said in a written statement Wednesday.

"These printers will give voters an additional level of comfort as they use the new, more accurate touch-screen machines.''

He said his office negotiated a $1.1 million deal with Diebold Election Systems Inc. to buy one printer for each of the 5,164 voting machines. That breaks down to $212.50 per printer - half of the $425 per printer that was specified in a contract Clark signed with Diebold in late June.

Until Wednesday, Clark had been saying printers would not initially be part of the touch-screen machines but would be added later, after more federal money is available.

Some critics, including U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., have said they worried about using voting machines that didn't include a paper record of how votes are recorded.

Clark said each touch-screen machine will show a paper ballot under a plastic window so voters can double-check that their choices are accurately recorded.

Voters won't be able to leave the polling place with a printed copy of their choices, though. The paper will be on a scroll that will roll into a locked canister inside the machine.

The federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, requires all outdated voting machines to be replaced nationwide by January.

In Mississippi, only seven of the 82 counties already have voting machines that comply with HAVA standards.

In 75 counties, supervisors have an Aug. 19 deadline to decide whether to be part of the bulk purchase of touch-screen machines from Diebold under the contract Clark signed. By Wednesday, 34 counties had agreed to buy the machines.

This is the first time in history that state and federal money has been available to buy voting machines in Mississippi. Counties have always borne that expense - and supervisors in some counties now are saying they don't know they'll find money to buy enough machines to go in all precincts to meet the federal mandate.

Under the Diebold contract, the state can buy one voting machine for about every 190 voters.

Clark said counties that buy new voting machines from other vendors will receive some federal and state money. Those counties' reimbursement rates will be determined after Clark knows how many counties are taking part in the bulk purchase from Diebold.

Rickey Cole, a former state Democratic Party chairman who now heads the nonprofit, nonpartisan Mississippi Policy Forum, said officials from the secretary of state's office are pressuring county supervisors to by the Diebold machines.

"They're telling the boards of supervisors, 'If you don't buy into this contract, you are going to be punished. You are going to get whatever money is leftover,''' Cole said.

"I think what needs to be done is for the boards of supervisors to listen to their local people'' about what kind of machines they want.

David Blount, spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said much of Cole's criticism about the purchase process is "misplaced.''