Charleston Gazette. May 03, 2006 
Kanawha?s dry run of voting machines remains incomplete

Kanawha County officials tried to test the county?s new optical scan voting machines on Tuesday, but were unable to complete the dry run because the machines were not fully programmed.

?They flunked the test,? said Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper. ?The machines were not ready, therefore they weren?t tested.?

In a letter to Secretary of State Betty Ireland, Carper criticized Election Systems and Software, the vendor contracted to provide the new voting machines statewide.

?The last-minute nature of the entire process presented by ES&S has eroded voter confidence, unnecessarily, and will make our election procedure suspect,? Carper wrote.

Last Friday, Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib Jr. extended the deadline for testing the new machines until May 8.

County officials have scheduled another test for Thursday at 11 a.m. at the county clerk?s election warehouse at 900 Christopher St.

The silver lining, Carper said, is that the new voting machines use paper ballots that voters fill out by hand. In the worst-case scenario, election officials will simply count those ballots manually.

?The accuracy will be 100 percent, because we?ve got the card filled out by the voter?s hand. It is the ultimate paper trail,? said Carper.