County sticks with voting machines 

Rino Dolbi    DeSoto Times   16 August 2005 
HERNANDO ? DeSoto County will stick with its optical scan voting machines and opt out of a plan being promoted by Secretary of State Eric Clark to standardize state voting using touch screen units.

The Board of Supervisors on Monday heard a recommendation from the county Election Commission to keep the optical scan units purchased from Election Systems & Software (ES&S) in 2004 at a cost of $270,000 and purchase a touch screen unit, the ES& AutoMARK, for each precinct which is usable by the blind, visually impaired and handicapped.
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires that punch card voting machines, old lever machines and other outdated machines be replaced by newer ones which meet federal standards. The act also requires the voting process be more accessible to the blind, visually impaired and handicapped.
Election Commission Chairman Paul Beale told the board that the optical scan units are compliant with HAVA and all that needs to be done is to purchase one touch screen for each precinct that meets standards of the Americans With Disabilities (ADA) act.
?We would like to stay with our equipment and purchase one ADA unit per precinct,? he said.
Mississippi received $15 million in HAVA funds to replace outmoded voting systems and Clark contracted with Diebold to supply the state with more than 5,000 touch screen units. DeSoto County would receive 173 units for its 35 precincts.
Clark, speaking to the board earlier this month, said the touch screen can be outfitted with a printer to produce a paper report which was one of the main concerns of local election officials.
Beale, reading from a prepared statement to the board Monday, said the ES&S unit uses a paper ballot and is more reliable than other systems.
?This system has a paper trail that is generated by the voter, not the machine, at the time of the election making the reconstruction of an election either electronically or by hand count of the original ballots possible,? he said.
Beale said the county could purchase 42 of the ES&S AutoMARK machines at $5,035 each for a total of $211,470.
Beale said that due to a rapidly growing population the county will need to add five more voting precincts and this will be done before Jan. 1 of next year when the county must be HAVA compliant. In addition to the 40 machines needed. he said two spare machines would be ordered.
The Election Commission and Circuit Court Clerk Dale Kelly Thompson also said the 173 machines provided under Clark?s plan would be inadequate to meet the demands here. They estimated that, at best, each touch screen can only accommodate 190 voters in a day. They estimated the county would need at least 127 more units and that could cost the county from $369,289 to $424,841, depending on the cost per unit.
The ES&S unit, he said, can record up to 14,000 ballots per day.
The county has not received any federal funds to reimburse it for the $270,000 spent on the optical scan system three years ago.
?We do not have a commitment from the state,? on reimbursement, said Beale. ?And based on the past three years experience we are just going to have to wait.?
Supervisor Jessie Medlin asked board attorney Tony Nowak if he felt the county could legally receive reimbursement for the system it purchased in 2002 and Nowak said he thought reimbursement would be possible.
State Sen. Doug Davis, who attended Monday?s meeting, said he would work to get the county HAVA money for its system.
?I fully intend to support the board of Supervisors, the Election Commission and the Circuit Clerk on this and seek to get you reimbursement,? he said.
Thompson said she expects several other counties to opt out of the plan like DeSoto County.
Clark?s office released a statement on Friday that said 44 of Mississippi's 82 counties have signed on to accept the new touch-screen voting machines.