Patrick Ervin
patrickervin@ddtonline.com
Casting a vote during the upcoming fall countywide elections is as simple as bubbling in a ballot and scanning it into the DS 200 voting machines. The Washington County Election Commissioners held their first of several trainings on Thursday at the Washington County Convention Center to familiarize voters with the new system. “Some people may be skeptical but it is a very easy process,” said District 1 Commissioner Jacqueline Thompson. “We want to make sure that everyone is comfortable with the process.”
State law requires that counties and municipalities move to systems such as this which don’t change much of the traditional voting process at all. When voters enter a polling precinct they will have their eligibility verified at the okay to vote table where they will receive a color coded chip. The chip determines the type of paper ballot style that the voters pick up at the next station. From there voters go to a sitting area to bubble in a paper ballot which is finally scanned into the DS200. “The voting machine can determine the difference between votes casted for Democrats and Republicans and separate those,” Thompson explained. “Once the ballots are scanned, they go into a secure box below the DS200. So even if the power goes out or our USB storage is accidentally removed, we just go into the box and rescan the paper ballots. You couldn’t do that with the old TSX Machine.”
The DS200’s scanner is programmed to recognize and reject ballots when voters have voted for too many candidates (over voting) and only counts what is marked when voters intentionally abstain from marking a ballot category.
For voters with physical and cognitive limitations, the Express Vote device reads the ballot to them so that they can participate in the process. Express Vote uses headphones and a touch screen for those who need accommodations in voting.
At the outset of the demonstration, Roderick Montgomery the county’s voting machine technician gave the citizens another level of reassurance by showing how the DS 400 machine initializes and prints out a zero report and prints out periodic result updates that poll manger display on the wall inside the precinct. He also showed how a real time paper jam and reinsertion of a ballot works as well as how the DS200’s entire unit locks with the turn of a key which will be in poll manager's possession during the election. District 2 Commissioner Sandra Reed added that the new voting machine also has a light that illuminates at 7 pm on Election Day signifying the close of voting.
There will be one DS200 and one Express Vote in all 19 of Washington County’s precincts on Election Day. Thompson also added that for people needing to vote curbside that they would still have to be validated according to voter rolls and their ballots would be marked, placed in a special sleeve and placed in a separate compartment in the DS200’s secure lockbox.
“I love it,” said District 4 Election Commissioner Sadie Seard. “It makes people feel more secure by knowing that they marked their own ballot. Therefore, people who used to complain about their ballot not matching the way they wanted to vote, they get a pen and paper where you can make certain that it’s marked the way you’d like it.”
