Most early voters favor electronic option
Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008
BENTON COUNTY - Introduced in the county in recent years, electronic voting machines appear to be popular, at least with most of this year's early voters, a worker in the Benton County Clerk's Office said Wednesday.
Early voting for the Tuesday primaries, which started May 5, will continue through election eve on Monday. Eligible voters may vote early at county clerk's offices in Bentonville, Rogers and Siloam Springs.
Political parties will hold partisan primary elections Tuesday, the same day that nonpartisan judicial elections will be held.
Since early voting began, more than 1, 800 people have voted in one of the county clerk's offices using one of the county's iVotronic electronic voting machines, said Tena O'Brien, administrative assistant to Benton County Clerk Mary Lou Slinkard.
A total of 1, 593 Republicans voted with an electronic-voting machine, she said. Only 11 used paper ballots.
A total of 248 Democrats voted with an electronic voting machine; only two used paper ballots, she said.
Election Systems & Software's iVotronic Touch Screen Voting System is a poll-worker-activated, portable touchscreen voting system that records votes on internal flash memory, the ES & S, according to the company's Web site.
Voters make their selections using a touchscreen, similar to ones in ATM machines, the Web site states.
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