King William County’s first district polling center at the West Point Armory experienced technical difficulties on Election Day when one of the optical scan voting systems stopped working. The system, an AccuVote-OS central scanner and tabulator used to read paper ballots, reportedly stopped working when its scanner malfunctioned. A technician was able to repair the machine before polls closed at 7 p.m. Had a technician failed to repair the scanner on election night, all paper ballots would have had to be counted by manual hand-count. King William County General Registrar Susan Mickens said all eight of the county’s scanners are aging and need to soon be replaced.
The scanners are 18 years old. “(The scanners) are old and unreliable,” Mickens said. “We have pleaded with the King William County Board of Supervisors about getting new voting equipment, but they said they don’t have the funds. “This is what happens when you have old equipment.”
Carol Wright, King William County deputy registrar, said the equipment is “great” when it works, but it is time for King William to update. “They’ve been here nearly 20 years,” Wright said. “We’ve updated the software, and we can buy new batteries and memory cards, but we just need new equipment. “We’re hoping to get new machines by 2015, certainly by 2016,” she added.
Full Article: King William’s voting machines are old enough vote – tidewaterreview.com.