Board interviews for new voting machines purchase

[kimpossible]

Eeek!

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun
[e-mail]
Dec 19, 2005 : 9:34 pm ET

DURHAM -- Durham County's Board of Elections has begun interviewing representatives of two companies that are vying for the right to sell the county new voting machines.

Officials spent six hours Monday listening to and asking questions about a presentation from one of the companies, Diebold Systems. They'll hold a similar session Wednesday with Election Systems and Software, said Mike Ashe, the county's elections director.

Ashe said the county is being forced to buy new voting machines because of a law Gov. Mike Easley signed in August that requires the state Board of Elections to tighten its oversight of the voting process.

"If the law had not changed, we would have had no desire to do away with our current system," Ashe said. "It has served us well and would have continued to do so."

The law requires the state board to ensure that all voting machines generate a paper record of each vote. The board also has to standardize the purchasing of voting machines and review the source code of any software they use.

Since 1993, Durham has used an "optical scan" balloting system made by ES&S. Poll workers give voters a ballot and a pen, and the voters draw a line on the ballot to mark their choice of candidates. The voter then feeds the ballot into a machine that scans it and reads the markings.

The existing system thus complies with the law's demand for a paper record, but Durham can't continue using it because it's not one of the two systems the state Board of Elections has certified for use. The new law says any system lacking that certification has to be withdrawn from service.

continued...

... at the Durham Herald-Sun

:banghead: