Touch-screen signup growing

Most Miss. counties show interest in new voting machines

The Associated Press    18 August 2005

Secretary of State Eric Clark says 66 counties have signed up to use new touch-screen voting machines that the state will make available in 2006.

The federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, requires all outdated voting machines to be replaced nationwide by January.

In Mississippi, Clark said only seven of the 82 counties already have voting machines that comply with HAVA standards.

Clark has been traveling the state since June trying to persuade county supervisors to be part of a bulk purchase of touch-screen voting machines from Diebold Election Systems Inc.

Supervisors have until Friday to decide whether to be included.

The federal government is paying 95 percent and the state is paying 5 percent of the $15 million tab to buy new machines and to provide training and technical support.

The cost covers 5,164 machines ? enough to have one machine for about every 190 voters in the state.

"I hope the remaining counties will choose to be part of the statewide purchase," Clark said Wednesday.

This is the first time that state and federal money has been available to buy voting machines in Mississippi.