A new voting system in Volusia County will mean less work for poll workers and more for machines — computers that can identify voters with the swipe of a driver’s license and are already common in counties across Florida, including Flagler.
“It’s not only going to save dollars, but it’s going to save possible fraud,” elections head Ann McFall said Thursday of the system on its way to Volusia: EViD, or the Electronic Voter Identification System. The new voting process, instead of requiring voters to sign in on a precinct register, will have many of them swiping their licenses like credit cards instead. “This is a real, real popular piece of equipment,” McFall said. “You’re going to see it in every one of the counties in the next five years. We were waiting for all the little chinks to be worked out of it.”
McFall hopes to have EViD in all of Volusia’s 179 voting precincts sometime next year, ideally in time for the Aug. 14 primary elections. And she wants the systems hooked up to special “ballot-on-demand” printers at the county’s five early-voting sites, meaning she won’t have to estimate how many ballots to order ahead of time. They’ll print as needed.
The system works like this: A registered voter comes to his polling place and steps up to an EViD station, which resembles the credit-card swiper at a gas station or supermarket. He hands over his license to be swiped, and the system checks to be sure he hasn’t already voted. If he’s at the wrong voting precinct, it prints him a message sending him to the right one.
(If he doesn’t have a driver’s license, a poll worker can input other information, like a birthdate, into the system to match up identity.)
Once matched, the voter signs an electronic signature pad, and the system prints out a ticket indicating which ballot he needs.
Full Article: New system will make voters swipe their IDs – News.