THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607170123
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 27 lines
Portsmouth officials are looking to buy a voting machine that's able to count ballots in minutes and report those results directly to a computer in the registrar's office.
The new machine would mean vote tallies will come in faster and more accurate than ever. It also means that voters won't have to wait in line to vote at the polls.
They'd simply fill in the ballots by hand, and the new voting machine just sucks in the ballots once they're completed.
The new voting machines could cost more than $280,000, but they will require a smaller work force and less storage space - a cost savings over time. The new voting booths are compact and light. Portsmouth now uses hulking, heavy, gray booths that have been around for decades and are now hard to find and expensive to buy.
While the new computerized machines are designed to save time and money, the city's voting registrar doesn't want to purchase them before the presidential election this fall.
``It's way too confusing to change an entire system just before a big election,'' said Registrar Deloris Overton. by CNB