NEW VOTING MACHINES ARRIVE

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Jefferson County will enter the 21st century next month when new voting machines are rolled out to replace the lever style machines voters have used for decades.

“They’re not as complicated to use as an automatic teller machine,” county election coordinator Taylor Eubank said about the 136 voting machines that were received Thursday afternoon.

He said the Election Commission has already started training poll workers on the use of the new machines, and hopes to be able to be able to set them up in high traffic areas before the May 23 Democratic and Republican party primaries.

“We will let people actually use them to vote,” he said. “It will be a play vote but will give voters a chance to practice.

“There are a lot of checks built into the machines,” Eubank said. “They won’t let people ‘over vote’ but they can ‘under vote’ and the machine will ask them if they want to vote for a candidate that they had omitted before they can actually complete the process and record the vote.”

Eubank said some of the new machines, acquired because of the Help America Vote Act, adopted by Congress, will give Jefferson County a capability that has not been possible before.

“Visually impaired and even totally blind people will be able to cast a secret ballot without assistance and that will be the first time we’ve ever been able to do that,” he said. “We have 48 polling places and one of those machines will be set up at each polling place.”

Although the machines will be different, Eubank said voters won’t see many other changes in what they’ve been used to in the past.

“The election officials are still going to ask for a persons name, their address, if they’re a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, and for identification, just like they always have,” he said.

Eubank said at least one poll worker at each site will receive extra training on the new machines so that if a problem develops during the primary voting, they hopefully will be able to solve it.

“The people that make the machines will also have a person here so we will have a lot of back-up in place to try and get us through the rough spots, and there will be some, with the least amount of discomfort,” he said.

“It’s going to be an adjustment for us, for the poll workers, and for the voters,” Eubank said about the use of the new machines on May 23. “The more we use them though, the more we’re going to learn about them and the easier it will be in the future.”