Punch card voting's end could close precincts

TONYA SMITH-KING   Jackson Sun   28 August 2005

A federal law requiring states to replace punch card voting machines could lead to the closing of some of Gibson County's 40 voting precincts.

The requirement is part of the Help America Vote Act Congress passed in 2001, election officials in Gibson County said.

There are 20 counties in Tennessee with punch card machines.

Those machines will have to be replaced by August 2006.

Gibson County Administrator of Election Molly McWherter said they'll get some federal money to replace punch card machines but don't yet know how much.

So, she's not certain how much local money will have to be contributed to the project.

Still, the Gibson County Election Commission "more than likely will consolidate" voting precincts, McWherter said.

"We don't know which ones, though," she said.

McWherter added that some of the county's precincts are "really small" and "need to be consolidated, anyway."

Election commission offices with punch card machines are waiting to hear from the state Election Commission how much money they'll get to replace the machines and the type of replacement machines they'll get.

State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson hopes to have answers for counties within the next 30 days, he said Friday.

The state has received $55 million through Help America in recent years, Thompson said. A lot of that will be spent on new equipment, he added.

"For counties that have had punch cards, we will basically be able to buy them what they need," Thompson said.

But Thompson added he couldn't say yet whether Gibson County would get the money it would need to replace machines in all 40 of its precincts.

The federal money will also help replace the old lever voting machines, still used by about five or six of the state's counties and purchase equipment to make some precincts more handicap accessible, Thompson said.

Counties have the option of getting digital, touch-screen voting machines similar to bank automatic teller or ATM machines or "optical scan" machines that require voters to fill in an oval such as on standardized test, Thompson said.

All of the newer type machines are expensive to operate and will make elections more expensive to hold, said Dorothy Jo Wadley, Henderson County's administrator of elections.

There is no maintenance at all to the punch card machines the county has now, Wadley said.

The county has 15 precincts. But Wadley said there's no way to know yet the changes that replacing their machines will require.

A couple of other counties with punch card machines in the region are Madison and Crockett counties. Neither Madison County Administrator of Elections Kim Buckley nor Crockett County Administrator of Elections Pat Forsythe expected to have to close precincts.

"A big priority of the Madison County Election Commission is that there be some sort of paper trail," Buckley said.

Most of the computerized machines now don't have one, but vendors are coming up with a device that will do that, she added. These devices can be added to the machines, Buckley said.

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