Reply #12: Two cities chosen as electric-vote test sites

[Melissa G]

Two cities chosen as electric-vote test sites
By Glen Warchol
The Salt Lake Tribune


Election officials who gathered at the Capitol on Thursday from every county in Utah for training on new electronic voting took a break to hear Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert's selection of cities to test the high-tech ballot boxes.
Farmington and Brigham City will serve as test sites during their municipal elections in October and November, Herbert said, because voting in the two cities is concentrated in a small number of polling places.
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Meanwhile, contention over the transition from Utah's punch cards to electronic machines, built by Diebold Elections Systems, continued to swirl.
All but five counties -Salt Lake, Emery, Summit, Grand and Weber - have signed agreements with the state to use the Diebold system. The state has a $27 million contract for 7,500 Diebold machines. But counties are free to choose their own balloting system, as long as it complies with federal mandate.
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Kathy Dopp, founder of Utah Count Votes, said county officials have been misinformed on parts of the Diebold decision, including

that they have to go along with the state's decision. "They were told they could not keep the punch cards."
Dopp hopes to gather activists Tuesday to sway the Salt Lake County Council at its meeting.

http://sltrib.com/utah/ci_2994830