New voting machines draw mixed reaction

By Rachel Fredericksen
Herald Staff Writer

March 10, 2006 11:54 pm

— CLINTON — Clinton School District voters expressed mixed reactions to the county’s new voting system after Tuesday’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy referendum.
Clinton County replaced the MicroVote Corp. direct recording electronic machines — purchased in 1999 for more than $450,000 — with optical scan machines made by Election Systems & Software to meet federal and state requirements in accordance with the Help America Vote Act.
With the old system, voters entered a solitary booth and used a push button system to register their votes.
With the new equipment, voters enter different solitary booths where they find paper ballots. Circles on the ballot are darkened to indicate the vote. Voters then take their ballots to the one counting machine in the room and insert the ballot for tabulation. The paper ballots are kept as a backup. A privacy envelope is available for transporting the paper ballots from the solitary booth to the tabulation machine.
County Auditor Charlie Sheridan said voters seemed to have an overall positive reaction. Some said “it seemed like we are going backwards instead of forward,” he explained..
Some felt the secrecy envelopes were cumbersome, and most declined to use them said Sheridan. Ballots can be put in the machine face down to prevent others from seeing the vote.
One female voter was upset, said Precinct Election Official Rhonda Davis, because she had a difficult time marking the ballot due to multiple sclerosis. Two poll workers can assist in situations like that, said Davis, but the woman did not want anyone to know how she voted.
She said “it’s my right to vote” without anyone knowing, Davis recalled.
The system seemed simple enough, said school district employees Jean Rursch and Julie Matzen after voting at the Clinton County Courthouse, but the PPEL referendum was a yes or no proposition with only one box to mark. In an election such as the June 6 primary with several selections to make, it will be more complicated.
The optical scan machines were purchased at a cost of $151,470 — $4,455 each for 34 machines. Because one ballot must be prepared for each registered voter in the county with the new system, the cost of printing ballots is much higher than the pre-election expenses with the old system.
“When we did (election preparations) internally,” said Sheridan, “we did absentee ballot guides and machine strips.”
In the fall regular school election, the school district was charged $5.61. For Tuesday’s PPEL vote, the school district paid $4,128.21. During political elections, the county pays those expenses through a property tax levy.
“I think (the new system) is reliable,” said Sheridan, noting it was needed to comply with federal law. “Once I’ve seen it in operation, I’m satisfied with it.”