Reply #10: OH: Voting machine swap means you'll scan paper ballot

[livvy]

Voting machine swap means you'll scan paper ballot
Posted by Joe Guillen June 27, 2008 19:47PM
From The Plain Dealer, June 25, 2008

Rental Machines Needed This Year

The county will rent 1,500 scanners_to be distributed throughout 576 voting locations-for the November election.

In 2009, the optical scanners will be replaced with more modern, digital scanners, which are not yet certified for use in Ohio.

Cuyahoga County polls will be stocked with new machines this November, but the voting experience will be familiar to people who cast ballots last March.

The county is sticking with the paper ballots that debuted in the primary after two troublesome years with touch-screen voting machines.

But there will be a big difference. Unlike in March, voters will feed their ballots into scanners at the voting locations instead of dropping the ballots in a box to be counted later in the night.

The new optical scanners - made by Election Systems & Software - record votes on memory cards and alert people if their ballots were filled out incorrectly, giving them a chance to fix errors.

The scanners create a potential for a second line at the polls, after you may have waited to get a ballot. Cuyahoga is renting 1,500 scanners, to be distributed throughout the 576 polling locations. With only one scanner per precinct, lines are possible at the machines.

more...

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2008/06/voting_machine_swap_means_youl.html