Reply #6: PA: County to urge voters to choose paper record

[New Earth]

By Jack Brubaker
Lancaster New Era

Published: Sep 13, 2006 1:39 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Following considerable debate, the County Commissioners last week purchased 92 additional eSlate electronic voting machines for the November election.

Now the county’s Board of Elections plans to promote eScans, an alternate voting method.

Don’t worry: This is not a result of miscommunication. Everything was planned this way.

“We want people to use eScan machines in November,’’ said Mary Stehman, chief clerk of the board. “We just bought the eSlates for the handicapped people.’’

Nevertheless, eSlate machines were more popular with a majority of voters in the primary, so the commissioners agreed to purchase 92 used eSlate machines to accommodate a larger turnout on Nov. 7.

Those machines will supplement 275 new eSlate and 275 new eScan machines the commissioners purchased for $3.2 million early this year from Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas.

The used machines — a relative bargain at $113,180 — were purchased from Yakima County, Wash., last Thursday and are being overhauled by Hart. They need Pennsylvania-friendly software and must be certified as reliable.

With eSlate machines, the ballot appears on a series of electronic screens. Users push buttons to register votes. Handicapped accessories are available. There is no paper record.

With eScan machines, voters fill out paper ballots and feed them through an electronic scanner. Votes are recorded electronically. They produce a paper record.

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/25739