Col. Co. To Get New Voting Machines

The News Reporter The county has been allocated $312,000 to comply with state and federal standards on voting machines that are intended to increase reliability and provide better handicapped accessibility. All of the county’s optical scanners are obsolete and must be replaced with new ones. In addition, the county has to add touch-screen voting machines at every precinct. Why are the current ones obsolete? You mark a ballet and slide it in the machine. It counts and keeps your paper ballet. A bit more info here would be nice. The new machines are one of the reforms required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which Congress passed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately decided that election by stopping the recounting of votes in Florida. North Carolina had its own problems in last year’s election, which has helped accelerate implementation of the voting machine provisions in HAVA and led to a new state law. A lot of the problems in Florida and here in NC where with new high tech machines. So fix that problem we are going to get some more new high tech machines. Makes perfect sense. The Columbus County Board of Elections will decide what to do with its share of the state money. Graham said the money is more than enough to pay for the new equipment. The board may install one touch-screen machine per precinct. The new machines will be on display during a public forum that is being planned for the last week in January. North Carolina is already HAVA compliant on two points – provisional voting and development of a statewide registration management database. OK Jessie so you got more money then needed, whatcha goin to do with the extra?