July 24, 2004

ES& S: ‘ Anyone with a finger can vote’

Company will plan voter- education strategy

BYKATIEWILSON
TIMESWESTVIRGINIAN

FAIRMONT — There’s been lots of apprehension floating about because of the Marion County Commission’s recent decision to go with electronic voting machines in November’s general election.

The commission and Election Systems & Software, which is providing the machines, will now embark on a huge voter- education campaign. ES& S will send employees to Marion County to teach the poll workers how to use the machines. Then they will begin taking the machines to businesses, organizations and every senior center in Marion County in an effort to teach each voter how to use the machines before November. The ES& S Web site has an online demonstration for the iVotronic system. Just go to www.essvote.com, click on “ products”, then “ voting equipment”. Choose “ iVotronic” to view the online tutorial.

Gary Greenhalgh, vice president of sales for ES& S, said the machines are so simple to use that anyone with a finger can vote. All a voter has to do is touch the screen over their choice.

The machine records the votes in a cartridge. Sharon Jones Shaffer, Marion County’s administrator, said after the polls close, each ballot is printed. The printouts record all activity on that machine for the day. They even include the exact times the machine opened and closed, as well as a printout of each and every ballot.

The machines do not allow a voter to “ overvote” or vote for too many candidates in a race. For example, if the instructions are to choose two candidates and the voter chooses three, a window pops up to say that the voter can only vote for two in this race.

To vote for a write- in candidate, all voters have to do is to touch the “ write in” button on any race. A keyboard will appear on screen, and the voters simply type in their choice. Commissioner Alan Parks said that spelling doesn’t even matter because each write- in vote will be counted individually after the polls close.

About 1,100 people voted on the iVotronic system in the May primary. The system was in place for early voting in the courthouse.

“ We had no complaints on 1,100 votes,” Parks said.