http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/04/23/news/local/news08.txt
Rapid City
Journal: Serving Rapid City South Dakota
April 22,
2005
Electronic
voting coming soon to S.D.
By Celeste
Calvitto, Journal Staff Writer
South Dakota
is on track to receive electronic touch-screen voting machines and optical-scan
ballot counters by the end of this year, Secretary of State Chris Nelson said
Friday.
The
machines, designed to help disabled voters cast ballots in private without
assistance, are required as part of the federal Help America Vote Act. By law,
the machines must be in place for the primary elections in June 2006, but they
will be used during some municipal elections in April of next year "so
counties can get familiar with them," Nelson said.
Election
Systems and Software is the vendor that will supply the machines for the $4.6
million program, Nelson said Friday. The federal government is funding 95
percent of the cost. Counties will pay the remaining 5 percent.
"The
ES&S Automark will allow an individual with a disability to cast a private
ballot without help for the first time in South Dakota history," Nelson
said in a news release. "This new technology will allow South Dakota
voters to mark their optical-scan ballot by touching a screen."
There will
be one Automark machine at each polling place and that will be available
to anyone. The current method of marking a ballot at a voting booth will also
remain.
"On
election days, the voter will have a choice between the old familiar voting
booth or the newest in technology," Pennington County Auditor Julie
Pearson said in a news release. "Pennington County will continue to use
optical scan/paper ballots just as we have since 1987. The voter will choose to
either mark the ballot with a pencil or with the new touch-screen
Automark," she said.
Pearson also
said the county has been able to buy new central scanning equipment to allow
faster processing and counting of ballots.
"The
new scanners will count twice as fast as our old ones," she said.
The cost to
Pennington County for the Automark machines and the new scanners will be about
$50,000, she said.
The program
"will be a great advantage to the state of South Dakota," Pearson
said. "Everybody in the state will have the same system, and if there is
any troubleshooting, we can do it en masse."
The Help
America Vote Act is federal legislation intended to assist states in improving
their election procedures and vote-counting machinery. It is a result of the
problems that Florida and Missouri had with their elections in 2000.
Contact
Celeste Calvitto at 394-8438 or celeste.calvitto@rapidcityjournal.com
Copyright ©
2005 The Rapid City Journal
Rapid City,
SD
FAIR USE
NOTICE
This site
contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our
efforts to advance understanding of political, democracy, scientific, and
social justice issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For
more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you
wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that
go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.