New voter check-in to be tested during Bartow's election

By JEREMY MAREADY
jeremy.maready@newschief.com

BARTOW - Bartow voters will have the opportunity to sample new voting technology during the municipal election on Tuesday.

The Florida Division of Elections has chosen Bartow to conduct a "pilot project" test of electronic, handheld precinct registers. The computers will be used as an adjunct to the paper poll registers normally used at polling locations.

"This is to get a sense of how pollworkers and voters feel about it," Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards said. "We are not looking to purchase them at this point."

Voters will be able to swipe their Florida driver license or identification card through the device, and sign the screen with a stylus, much like the one used during credit card purchases in retail stores. If voters do not wish to be accounted for that way, the traditional method can also be used.

The new equipment could make the processing of voters quicker and allow election administrators to automatically upload voting history, allowing more reliable voter statistics to be available sooner.

This new system, if later adopted and implemented, would replace the thick notebooks used at voter check-in, and eliminate almost a week of processing voter information after elections.

"Right now we are happy with our paper process," Edwards said.

The voter history recorded includes information on the individual who is voting, when they registered to vote, when, where, and the method used to vote.

The equipment being tested is only used for checking in voters, not the actual voting process. "We are still using the Accuvote optical scan equipment for voters to cast their ballots," Edwards said.

Election officials from around the state, as well as Division of Elections staff, will be on hand to observe the election.

The handheld machines will have automatically d voter history, reducing time and resources used by the elections office. Up to 15 million voters can be stored in each handheld device, depending on their amount of stored history.

This is the first time these machines will be tested in Florida. They have been used in other areas of the country.