This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

February 2, 2006

A new way to vote

Touch-screen demonstration converts leery voters to experts

By Charles Shumaker
Staff writer

BUFFALO — At first, Leota Young found them complicated and intimidating, but she soon warmed up to the glowing screens of Putnam County’s new electronic voting machines.

A few minutes before Young cast her vote in a make-believe election to decide issues like her favorite ice cream flavor and favorite two singers, she was leery of the machines.

“I don’t like them at all,” she said as she stitched a hat at the Buffalo Senior Center. “These things look too complicated.”

But her tune changed after she used her fingertip to select chocolate as her favorite ice cream and Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley as her top singers.

“I was kind of afraid at first, but it is much easier now that I’ve done it,” Young said afterward.

Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood took two of the electronic machines to Buffalo in one of his several treks to explain the county’s new voting machines. Clerks statewide are doing similar demonstrations, as nearly every county in the state has made some kind of change to their voting systems.

“We want to make people comfortable,” Wood said.

Putnam County commissioners decided to offer three voting methods to county residents. The county bought one touch-screen machine per precinct. Those machines electronically record votes made by touching the screen, then back up the results on a paper scroll.

Commissioners also bought optical-scan machines that count votes from paper ballots after voters mark their choices by hand, as they would on a standardized test. Voters who use this method will take their ballot to a booth to mark, then will have their ballots dropped in canisters for counting. Precincts will be made up mostly of this system.

The third Putnam County system will be available only during early voting. Using that method, Putnam voters will feed their paper ballot into a machine, use a computer screen to make their choices then have their votes printed by the machine onto their ballot.

The touch-screen method seemed to be the hit in Buffalo Wednesday.

Maxine Witt, a county poll worker and regular at the senior center, said she loves the new options. But she is worried that some of the county’s voters will be leery at first.

“These will be nice. They’re so simple,” Witt said. “But I think most older voters will be afraid.”

Jim Campbell of Buffalo said he thinks seniors may be stuck in the past.

“The old way is the old-fashioned way,” he said. “I like this. It should have been done a long time ago.”

The state’s new voting machines will bring counties up to new federal voting regulations, especially for handicapped and disabled voters.

Therese Cox, senior outreach coordinator for the Secretary of State’s Office, said she has been traveling the state so voters can see the machines and get acquainted with them before the primary election in May.

To contact staff writer Charles Shumaker, use e-mail or call 348-1240.