The Kane County Election Committee examined an optical-scan voting system Monday that could replace the outdated punch cards used on Election Day.
The system, called Inkavote, uses a ballot that looks like a punch card. Instead of making a hole with a stylus, however, the voter marks the ballot with a marker that is provided.
“It’s the same as a punch card, but there are no chads,” said Kane County Clerk John Cunningham.
When finished, the voter puts the ballot in a counter. If there are any mistakes–such as two votes in one race, which is called overvoting, or no votes cast in a race, undervoting–an alert is immediately printed so the voter can make the corrections.
At the end of Election Day, the election judges print a report and sign it, and take a key-chain-sized memory card to the clerk’s office so ballots can be tabulated. Alternately, the votes can be transmitted to the clerk’s office via modem.
“We wanted to make it as simple as possible at the precinct,” said Steven Schwickert, director of Unisyn Voting Solutions, the company that makes the counters.
Sandra Hed , who was representing Election Data, makers of the Inkavote ballots, gave a presentation on the proposed system. She said voters feel more comfortable with the ballot, and last-minute changes are easy to make.
Each ballot counter would cost about $4,000, Schwickert said. But not each of the county’s 220 precincts would need a counter, because they can be programmed to handle more than one set of ballots.
Cunningham said he would prefer to move to touch-screen voting, but that may be cost-prohibitive.
