Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
March vote will test new machines
Paper ballots will be the county's system.
By Nick Johnson, Times Staff Writer
Published March 2, 2008
This month's municipal elections in St. Pete Beach will give residents the first crack at the new paper ballot voting system that soon will be used countywide. Voters will fill out a paper ballot with black ballpoint pen that is then fed into an optical scanning unit that reads their selections. Florida statute requires a change to these optical scan paper ballots across the state by July 1. "This way there is a paper ballot that can be hand counted if needed," said Nancy Whitlock, the communications director for the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office. The optical scanner stores the results of each ballot digitally and allows them to be sent to the Supervisor of Elections Office via a modem for quick tabulation. The paper ballots are then kept as backups to the data files. Other municipalities holding elections on March 11 will continue to use the touch screen systems. St. Pete Beach residents won the honors thanks to the city clerk, Teresa McMaster, who volunteered to be the first to use the new ballots. "We selected them because they only have four precincts and we wanted to try it on a smaller scale at first," Whitlock said. "This gives us the chance to use the equipment in an official capacity before we use it countywide." The new system will be used throughout Pinellas County during the Aug. 26 primary elections. Beach residents will use the same paper ballots for early voting or voting by mail. So far the new system has earned a positive response from the public. "For the most part people said, 'Oh, this is easy. We can handle that,' " Whitlock said after a number of demonstrations in St. Pete Beach last week. Voter Education Coordinator Nancy Adams said people at the demonstrations seemed very comfortable with the new system. A touch screen attached to the optical scanner gives prompts to voters who have left an item blank, or voted multiple times in one field, allowing them to correct the ballot or submit it, as is. If no problems are detected on the ballot, it is fed directly into a locked ballot box. "I expect most will just go right through," Adams said. Nick Johnson can be rewached at nickjohnson@sptimes.com or 893-8361.
[Last modified March 1, 2008, 22:23:35]
Share your thoughts on this story
Comments on this article
|
by Dennis
|
03/04/08 08:27 PM
|
|
I get the feeling with all the rancor in SPB, they might need to have the backup paper ballots since if the CRG candidates lose, no doubt they will want to legally try to challenge it to further divide the city.
|
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Letter to the editor
