State-of-the-art machines will be phased in beginning with the
June 6 election
This week voters in San Benito County will have a new option for
casting their ballots, electronically.
State-of-the-art machines will be phased in beginning with the June 6 election
This week voters in San Benito County will have a new option for casting their ballots, electronically.
San Benito County is stepping into the 21st Century and moving toward computer voting, but not so quickly that they intimidate voters.
Poll workers estimated that with the option of traditional paper ballots, there will be fewer people casting electronic ballots than traditional ones.
“Some of the voters probably won’t feel comfortable enough to use the electronic booths, but they will have the option,” said Elaine Kovanda who received training on the new machines last week.
Voters will receive an activation card that contains their party affiliation and the card is inserted into the computer to activate a voting session.
The machine features a touch screen where the voters make their selections and offers several opportunities to back up in case mistakes are made. Once voting is done the poll workers retrieve the cards and the information is stored on data cartridges that are later collected and recorded.
“It’s like a key that operates a car, but you can only use it once,” San Benito County Elections Specialist Mike Hodges said.
Hodges walked poll workers through the process several times during the past few weeks, but the testament to the new machines won’t come until people use them.
Santa Clara, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties are all using electronic machines, and have for several years, but Hodges said that San Benito County was one of the first to get the new generation of machines that provides a ribbon printout among other innovations.
Hodges explained that the public has had plenty of exposure to the machines San Benito County will use during the past year through service club meetings and public outreach events. The biggest exposure perhaps was at last fall’s San Benito County Fair.
“I think we hit quite a few people at the fair,” Hodges said.
Contrary to Kovanda, he doesn’t think that people will be apprehensive about using the new machines.
“The majority of people I’ve encountered are not afraid to use them,” Hodges said. “Once they enter their first selection it’s a piece of cake. After that, they’re gung-ho.”
The only problem with the new process is that the county doesn’t have enough electronic machines for this election, so each polling place will feature two electronic machines and also offer the option of paper voting.
“Since there are not enough machines to meet the demand we’re offering this as an alternative. In the past we had as many as 10 polling booths, now we’ll have eight booths and two machines,” Hodges said.
With two alternatives Hodges said that the process should be faster and allow people to get in and out quicker. He also said that counting the votes would be faster as well.
Hodges said that the biggest selling point of the electronic process is that everything is reversible by backing up a step. The integrity of the machines though is protected, since the cards can only be used once and the machines are secured so that once they have been activated the information cannot be retrieved until the completion of the voting.
