ARTICLE ON JOINT COMM. ON VOTING MACHINES AND WHY I FEEL IT SHOULD BE SOONER

Below is an article posted on the Northwestern's website this afternoon. A story that will be in Tuesday's paper. My take on this information is while this meeting will give the public a chance to express thier views on the subject it gives the committees very little time to come with a resolution to resolve the issue-- resolutions should be in County Clerk's office the Monday or Tuesday before the County Board meets.

The committees should meet at least a week before to come up with a solution if it the wish to purchase the voting machones in a block for the whole county.


Mike Norton -Cty. Board Supervisor District 20


Posted May 22, 2006County board readies June 14 forum on touch-screen voting

BY ALEX HUMMEL of The Northwestern
Elections and technology committees of Winnebago County’s Board of Supervisors will meet June 14 meeting to separate fact from fiction on the controversial purchase of touch-screen voting machines.Last week, the county board rejected the $294,000 federal-grant-assisted purchase of 49 Diebold Elections Systems touch-screen voting machines. One machine would have been placed in each of the county’s urban and rural polling places to comply with the Help American Vote Act.The act is intended to improve accessibility to the election process to disabled Americans. Winnebago County, like several others around Wisconsin, already uses older Diebold technology to gather and transmit vote results on election day. So, the Diebold touch-screen machines were seen as the lone compatible choice.But national concerns about the Diebold machines’ security and ability to produce a reliable paper record authenticating a voter’s ballot led to county board questions and, ultimately, rejection of the grant.“If we use this, we’re investing in technology that will fail,” Supervisor Jef Hall, of Oshkosh, said Monday during a meeting of the county board’s Legislative Committee. “It has been proven again and again.”The public forum of the Judiciary and Information Systems committees may include input from the Wisconsin State Elections Board and Diebold Election Systems, although all participants have not yet been booked. The June 14 meeting will be held at the James P. Coughlin Center, 625 E. County Trunk Y. It’s tentatively scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

The county board hopes its two committees will come to some consensus that night on whether to pursue the Diebold technology or pick one of three other touch-screen machines the Elections Board has approved for local polling places. They’ll forward their decision to the full county board.Later in June, the county board will have to act. Otherwise it will be up to local towns, cities and villages to pick which HAVA-compliant voting technology they want to have. As in the past, the towns have, with the county’s lead, used the same system to ensure faster, smoother vote-gathering countywide.

Read Tuesday's Northwestern for more on this story.
Alex Humme: (920) 426-6669 or ahummel@thenorthwestern.com.