Elections Board Adds $3 Million for Equipment: Money to Help Counties Buy Voting Machines With Paper Records

By Sharif Durhams, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

Jan. 28–RALEIGH — County elections officials who have grumbled about having to buy new voting machines will get millions in additional federal dollars to help ease the pain.

The State Board of Elections approved a plan this week to spend an extra $3 million in federal grant money for voting equipment. The state board also agreed to test equipment for all 100 N.C. counties, saving the counties an estimated $2.4 million.

“That’s a time-saver for counties as well as a money saver,” said Paul Meyer, an attorney with the N.C. Association of County Commissioners. He said the counties already had about $43 million for new machines, but that some local officials would have purchased “bare bones” elections systems without the extra money.

Almost all N.C. counties need new voting equipment because of a state law passed last year that requires a paper record of each electronically recorded ballot. The state has to approve the voting equipment that counties use.

The state elections board approved only one vendor — Election Systems & Software — to provide the machines, so counties must use that company or count ballots by hand.

The mandate has frustrated some counties.

Catawba County, which bought new machines three years ago, had explored filing an appeal of the state’s decertification of its machines and tried to get the General Assembly to hold a special session on the issue. Neither option panned out.

On Friday, a subcommittee of the county commissioners voted to recommend spending $812,155 for new machines. The state would furnish $593,764 of that, while the county would take the rest from savings.

State officials said county elections were supposed to place orders for the machines by Jan. 20, to ensure they are installed, tested and ready for the May 2006 primaries. Officials in several counties complained about the deadline and about having limited options.

Mecklenburg commissioners voted to spend $5.4 million over the next three years on about 2,000 touch-screen voting machines.

Staff writer Hannah Mitchell contributed to this report.

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