SC Ping
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Posted on 08/06/2004 6:24:04 PM PDT by SC Swamp Fox
Florence County voters will use new machines this fall
FLORENCE - Florence County voters will see new electronic voting machines when they go to the polls in November, Florence County Voter Registration and Elections Director Russell Barrett said Thursday.
The State Election Commission announced Wednesday it signed a contract with Election Systems and Software for new voting machines in 16 counties, including Florence.
State commission director Marci Andino said the state had to pick a vendor quickly so counties can begin receiving their equipment by mid-August and complete training.
The state is working to replace punch card equipment similar to the machines used in Florida that led to problems during the 2000 presidential election.
The state stands to lose $2 million in federal money if it fails to replace the old machines by the November election.
“The machines are supposed to come in sometime between now and the end of this month,” Barrett said. “But we’re supposed to get a few machines a little early so we can start practicing on them and getting ready for the demonstration process.
“We’ve got a heck of a job ahead of us, but we’re going to do everything we possibly can to expose as many people to these new machines as possible,” he said.
Barrett said the new machines also will allow blind or vision-impaired voters at all precincts to cast ballots for the first time without a helper in the voting booth with them.
The new voting machines will be stored in the old Florence County Library at the corner of Pine and Irby streets so elections officials can train with them, Barrett said.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Does anyone know anything about this company? Do their machines produce a hard-copy of the votes cast for verification and re-count purposes?
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Seems like a waste to have new voting machines for just florence and 15 other county voters.
I was try to edit the headline so SC Freepers would realize that this article applies to about a third of the state and not just Florence county.
I made it sound like some lady named Florence and 15 of her neighbors are getting new voting machines.
do you have a list of counties?
Aiken County here. I am a poll manager and have been told we'll have the new machines. We're supposed to have a training session in Sept IIRC.I'm not particularly looking forward to this. The voters are going to be stumped by the new machines. Election day isn't gonna be fun.
And then there's this.
Good Lord that is incredible. Just when you thought bureaucrats couldn't get any dumber, it appears they've signed up one of the worst written programs ever.
The point is that ANY electronic voting machine, just like ANY computer system, can be compromised. It would truly be foolhardy to just accept the machine's results without having a way to manually check the results.
I do not know if the Election Systems and Software machines provide an audit trail. I hope so.
Here's a link to them. I'll be reading it later.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/home.html
Omaha, NE, August 4, 2004 — South Carolina's State Election Commission announced today that the state has selected Election Systems & Software (ES&S) to implement a new voting system statewide. Beginning this November, 16 South Carolina counties will use ES&S' iVotronic™ touch screen voting machines to cast their votes, and absentee votes will be tabulated using ES&S Model 100 and Model 650 Absentee Ballot Counters. South Carolina's other counties will begin using the new technology in 2005.
My opinion is very low of these. The optical scan ballot machine offered appears to be a far better choice; since ESS offers both, I don't know why Florence would choose touch screen over it since you have an actual ballot that you can recount, even by hand if necessary.
Well, I don't know about all that. The website shows there is an individual electronic ballot that is inserted into the touchscreen voting unit. I would like to see more before making a judgement.
SC Poll Manager ping
Hi, upchuck.
I'll show this article to my husband. Thanks!
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