BENTONVILLE - There's a very simple way people can make the process of voting in the upcoming preferential primaries an easier one, Benton County election coordinator Jim McCarthy said. "Grab a paper ballot, vote it and put it in the ballot box. It will go smoother,"McCarthy said.
Smooth and easy are not words being used to describe the election process so far. McCarthy and members of the Election Commission have been working long hours to set up voting equipment that will be used for the first time on Tuesday.
The Election Commission purchased two new systems. One system uses paper ballots and scanners to count vote. The other system uses electronic voting machines. The electronic voting machines are intended for disabled voters, but anyone can use them. The electronic machines are not intended to make paper ballots obsolete.
These systems comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which requires every polling site to replace punch card systems and provide voting equipment that is accessible to disabled voters.
To meet that requirement, the Election Commission purchased more than 100 ADA-ready electronic voting machines - one for each polling place and several for the Benton County Clerk's Office.
Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels announced in November the state chose to use equipment from Election Systems & Software.
Despite misprints and delays, election commissioners had enough of the new electronic voting machines ready for early voting May 8. Since then, commissioners have battled paper jams, battery glitches and paper-ballot misprints.
The unforeseen delays mean the process of familiarizing many pollworkers with the new machines electronic machines won't be done before the Tuesday primaries, McCarthy said. "To make the voting process go as smoothly as possible, we would urge everyone who can to use a paper ballot,"he said. "We have not had a sufficient amount of time to do adequate training for our pollworkers with the electronic ballots, and it's going to stop everything, or slow it way down, if they try and do that."
Election Commission Chairman John Brown said the company has "bitten off more than it can chew,"leaving nearly every county in the state dealing with the same problems as Benton County. "ES&S has oversold itself all over the country,"McCarthy said.
Republican Secretary of State candidate Jim Lagrone will hold a brief news conference at 10:30 a.m. Monday in front of the Benton County Courthouse in Bentonville to discuss problems with the ES&S voting machines.
Most voters will continue to use paper ballots, similar to the voting method used in Benton County in the past. The paper ballots will be stored in ballot boxes and counted after the polls close using four new central-count machines.
But even that will be a new process with new ballotcounting equipment, Mc-Carthy said. "It's going to be gangbusters,"he said of election night.
The Election Commission had hoped the new equipment would allow real-time vote-count updates online and on television screens at the Clarion Hotel and Convention Center. But that attempt has fallen by the wayside as more pressing issues continue to arise for Election Commissioners.
The new system has not only been time-consuming, it has been expensive. The Election Commission has purchased new ballot boxes, new ballot bags, not to mention order after order of incorrectly printed ballots. McCarthy said the extra costs are in the "thousands."
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