News

Florida county's touchscreen voting machines to cost at least $1 million

April 11, 2004

Brevard County, Florida, needs to spend at least $1 million to buy ATM-like touchscreen voting systems by 2006, Florida Today newspaper reported.

Federal voting reform laws mandate that each polling place install at least one such voting machine for visually impaired voters. The machines employ an audio option that allows sight-impaired voters to listen to ballot choices via headphones and vote with a handset comparable to a video-game controller.

"We will comply with whatever law they come up with," Brevard Supervisors of Elections Fred Galey told the newspaper. "But it won't be cheap." There are about 200 polling places in Brevard County.

The reform law calls for Washington to help fund the new voting machines, but the money has been slow in coming.

"I expect some unfunded mandates," Galey said.

In 1999, Brevard County replaced its ineffectual punch card voting system with the optical scanner system county voters now use. That insulated the county from the election problems that plagued Palm Beach and other Florida counties during the 2000 election.

Election reform laws required those counties to replace the punch card machines with either optical scan or touchscreen machines. Fifteen counties chose the touchscreen machines.

"They all work," Galey said. "I like what I've got better because it already has a paper ballot" that can be used to verify votes in case of a recount.