Published: November 06, 2009 02:51 am      

POLITICS: Voter turnout called 'terrible'

Election officials were more than disappointed in the number of voters who showed up at the polls for Tuesday’s election.

“Turnout was terrible,” said Dennis Piedimonte, Republican election commissioner at the Orleans County Board of Elections.

About 23 percent of registered voters cast their ballots Tuesday, compared to the 35 percent that normally votes, said Piedimonte.

However, it was not just Orleans County that experienced low numbers. Piedmont said not-so-great voter turnout was a trend across the state.

“Oh, it’s a shame,” said longtime election inspector Jean Smith, a Democrat, about the number of people who voted in Orleans County this year.

Smith, who has been an election inspector “since the early ’70s, late ’60s,” said she hopes many more voters will turn out in the future.

This year also served as a trial run for optical scanning voting machines in the Town of Murray. According to Piedimonte, this was the first year the machines were used anywhere in the county, and “everything went smoothly.”

Optical scanning voting involves voters marking down on a piece of paper who they are voting for, and feeding that paper through a machine to be read — much like the way high school tests are scored.

“There were no major problems there at all, except that people were not happy with them,” said Piedimonte about the new machines.

And it’s a good thing everything went smoothly, because according to the election commissioner, the entire county will be using optical scanning devices next year. In compliance with the Help America Vote Act — which was signed into law in 2002 following controversy over the 2000 presidential election — all states and localities must replace punch card voting machines.

However, Smith is concerned that because optical scan voting will be new to people next year, it will take them longer to fill out their ballots, and will cause many delays in the voting process.

“For a major election, to break in these machines ... we (the election inspectors) will be trained, we’ll know how to use them, but the public won’t,” she explained.

Smith said that while the lever voting machines have worked well for many years, she understands the need for change. “I just think it’s poor timing,” she said.

Piedimonte also pointed out that the new optical scanning voting systems are “quite a bit more expensive” than the lever machines.

Contact editor Holly Toal at 798-400, ext. 8225.