The future of voting machines in the county will be among the topics of discussion when State Board of Elections Secretary Don Palmer meets with staff and officials of the Arlington registrar’s office on June 15.
County election officials say they are generally satisfied with the current crop of electronic voting machines that are in use alongside paper-ballot options in Arlington elections, but have also begun looking at new-generation equipment to deal with voting in the 2012 presidential election.
Because of the large turnout in presidential years – 110,000 Arlington voters cast ballots in 2008 – Arlington election officials rent voting equipment for those years, and have starting making contact with equipment manufacturers to find the best fit for the county.
“We’re going to work with all the vendors” before making any decisions, Registrar Linda Lindberg said.
One possibility would be digital scanners, which read paper ballots but provide more features than the optical-scan machines currently in use. Arlington may be used as a test site during the August primary for digital machines manufactured by Unisyn.
Full Article: Sun Gazette Newspapers – Arlington > News.