The Villages Daily Sun

BUSHNELL — Supervisor of Elections offices throughout Florida are in a state of flux.

It’s a case of d/ja vu.

After the confusion of hanging and pregnant chads during the national election in 2000, Florida lawmakers ordered election offices statewide to find a better way the following year.

In Sumter County, the better way was the iVotronic Touch Screen machines, or so county officials thought. After all, there was no paper to punch, no chads to hang, just a screen to read, touch and vote electronically.

But in 2006, new questions arose in Florida about a voting system that did not leave a paper trail. Florida legislators went back to the drawing board and came up with yet another way to vote, which included scrapping the fairly new touch-screen voting machines Sumter had purchased.

“The concern in the Florida House was that many counties in Florida used a system without a paper trail,” state Rep. Hugh Gibson, R-The Villages, explained. “That led them to scrap the old system and look for a system that could accommodate the paper trail.”

Gibson stated he personally liked the touch-screen system and felt it worked fine, “but others felt the new paper trail was better.”

Sumter County resident Ron Berry was a fan of the touch-screen system, too.

“I didn’t have a problem with the touch screen,” Berry said. “It was easy to use; if you had a question, there were practice machines set up with volunteers there to show you how to use it. The whole thing of changing systems is bogus. It’s costly and unnecessary.”

The machines had worked well for Sumter County, according to Supervisor of Elections Karen Krauss. Getting rid of them and buying an all-new system is an expensive proposition, she added.

Sumter County had paid $842,000 for the first 240 touch-screen voting units, but since that initial purchase, the county had

added additional units and software for a final cost nearing $1 million.

Once it was mandated that all counties would stop using the touch-screen machines and find an election system that used some type of paper trail, Krauss met with several state-certified voting machine vendors in early 2007. Krauss, with the approval of the Sumter County Board of County Commissioners, chose an optical-scan voting machine called the Digital Scan 200.

Krauss ordered an initial 106 of the new machines, five printers, writing pads and new software.

“The total cost for these new ones was $590,100, and this is a special, reduced rate the state worked out with the vendor,” she said.

However, Krauss found an innovative way to save taxpayer dollars.

She asked the state for permission to keep the privacy booths that came with the iVotronic Soft Touch. The three-sided booth was a separate unit from the electronic touch screen.

The cost for new mid-quality privacy booths would have been approximately $300 apiece. However, Krauss was able to modify her old booths with plastic privacy inserts for about $17,000 total.

Keeping these booths saved the county money, because they will work with the software and tabulation machines used with both the touch-screen and optical scan systems, Krauss said.

“That was a selling point for me, because I could save money,” she said.

But the money-saving measure also comes with a cost.

“The privacy booths we are keeping are heavy and difficult to lug around,” Krauss said. “And some election offices voted to go with smaller, lighter versions. But we have these, and Lee County gave us 300 more privacy booths at no cost. So I thought that was a good deal for the county.”

Voters at 43 polling locations — with the six additional sites on the map for future use in The Villages — will be required to vote on the new machines at the Aug. 26 primary and the Nov. 4 general election.

During the next few months, employees from county elections offices will be gearing up for the Aug. 26 primary, learning the machines just months before voters cast their ballots.

“We have ordered the machines and ballot boxes, and everything should be in by the end of April, beginning of May,” Krauss said.

Krauss and her staff will have two of the new machines that use a paper ballot at the Sumter County Fair in Bevilles Corner this week. However, ballots cannot be printed until after qualifying ends on June 20 and the information is provided by the state for elections offices.

Right now, Krauss has a warehouse full of voting machines she can’t use and is waiting for new machines and training for her staff and poll workers.

The state is taking back the touch-screen machines, and they may either be sold or scrapped, Krauss said.

She plans to return 189 machines, but will keep 89 of them.

“We have to keep some of the soft-touch machines for persons with disabilities,” Krauss said. “These machines are equipped with audio headsets. We have until 2012 to adapt the optical-scan machines for persons with disabilities.”

The state of Florida isn’t buying back the machines, but the county will receive a $225,000 state grant to help offset the cost of new equipment.

“It isn’t just the cost of new machines that will cost the taxpayers with this change,” Krauss said. “It’s the cost of training staff, poll workers and the community. Plus, we now have to purchase paper ballots, and because of districting, it’s not like we can order 80,000 of one ballot. There will be numerous different ballots within the county. It’s all expensive.”

Lake County Supervisor of Elections Emogene Stegall had invested $4 million in the old iVotronic machines. For her 102 polling locations, Stegall has since purchased 177 of the new DS200 machines and several printers for future elections.

Stegall said she also chose this type of optical-scan machines because they can be used with the software from the touch-screen system.

“Lake County received $711,000 from the state to use toward the purchase of the new machines and supplies,” Stegall said. “This system change will cost our taxpayers about $1 million dollars. And the touch-screen system worked fine. We never had a problem. But we’ll adjust and make the elections happen just like we always have.”

It’s not like change is new for Stegall. She has been supervisor of elections in Lake County since 1958 and has gone from the 940-pound lever machines, to the punch machines, to the touch screen and now back to paper ballots.

“Whatever or however we are mandated by the state, we will make the election happen,” Stegall said. “It’s our job.”

Dee Brown, supervisor of the Marion County elections office, is in a somewhat better situation than Lake and Sumter. Brown and the Board of County Commission chose to go to the optical-scan machines in 2001.

Krauss has two functioning Digital Scan 200s for demonstration purposes. She and her staff will be trained on the new equipment in April.

Krauss will be available to speak to local groups and organizations during the next few months, to explain and demonstrate the new machines and voting process. For additional information, call her office at 793-0230.