No more pesky 'hanging chads'

New machines will allow all to cast ballots without help

Thursday, October 6, 2005

By MOLLY PARKER   Peoria Journal Star

Of the Journal Star
PEORIA - The next time ballots are cast in the city of Peoria, it will be done on an electronic machine equipped with the ability to speak to the blind and register the vote of a quadriplegic through a straw.

Welcome to the future of voting. The days of ing the nation's leaders with pen and paper or with a punch card are about to become as antiquated as rotary telephones and typewriters.

The Help America Vote Act requires election outfits across the country to have equipment in place allowing all voters to cast a ballot without assistance by January.

The Peoria Election Commission is negotiating with Dundee-based Populex Corp. to implement the city's new machines, executive director Jeannette Mitzelfelt said Wednesday. They will be in place by the March 21 primary election for state and county offices.

"The company is relatively new," Mitzelfelt said. "We've been working with them for several years, primarily after the 2000 presidential election, in trying to figure out what we could do to eliminate some of those problems."

The machines the commission is poised to purchase would prevent over votes, in which a person chooses more than one candidate for the same office, and also lets people know if they have under voted, or skipped an office on the ballot.

The approximately 300 machines that will be purchased will come with a price tag of nearly $1 million, though about half of that will be covered with federal grants, Mitzelfelt said.

The machines will be accessed with a key card similar to a credit card.

Voters will use a stylus to pick their preferred candidates on the screen. For blind voters, the machine will read aloud the candidates' names, prompting them to touch the screen as their preference is stated into their headphones. The machine also will allow a quadriplegic to use the same "sip and puff" technology that powers a wheelchair.

All voters will also receive a paper trail indicating their votes, as is required by Illinois law.

Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties are also in the process of buying new equipment to meet standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Peoria County Board is expected to vote on a resolution this month that will allow the county clerk to move forward with purchasing electronic voting systems from Hart InterCivic, a Texas-based company. The nearly 145 machines expected to be purchased will be largely covered by a $650,000 federal grant, said County Clerk JoAnn Thomas.

During the March election, voters in Tazewell County will use the optical scan system for the first time, in which voters will fill in ovals next to the candidate of their choice. And although not everyone will be voting on electronic machines, there will be one at every polling place for individuals with disabilities. The cost of those machines is about $1.3 million, but County Clerk Christie Webb expects that all but about $250,000 will be reimbursed through grants.

Woodford County Clerk Peggy Rapp said they have had the optical scan machines since last fall. The county, however, is also in the process of making its system handicap accessible, and is looking to purchase equipment that will work with the paper ballots. The cost will be about $200,000, though Rapp also expects a partial reimbursement.

All the electronic voting systems must first be certified by the state of Illinois before they can be used. None of the systems local officials are considering buying have been cleared, though they're moving through the process, officials said.