Machines add features to help system, voters

Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006

Two features have been added to Montgomery County’s electronic voting system that officials say will make the polling process more efficient and user-friendly on Tuesday.

If a voter goes two minutes without making a choice, the system will time out, which election officials say will resolve problems that tied up the system in the last election.

The new system also lets voters magnify text on the screen, which will help those with vision problems.

The county first used its electronic voting system in 2002.

Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator for the state board of elections, said the time-out function was added to solve the problem of what he called ‘‘fleeing voters.”

‘‘We have what we refer to as fleeing voters, people who go to the polls and start to vote and then get a cell phone call or think they left their keys in their car or for whatever reason leave,” he said. ‘‘Then an election judge has to decide what to do with that ballot.”

In previous elections, voters who left incomplete ballots posed problems because the touch-screen machines became locked into the voter’s ballot and election workers attempting to free up the machines could also view the voter’s choices, Goldstein said.

The new function clarifies the protocol in such a scenario.

The time-out feature does provide voters with a warning if the screen is not touched for two minutes, said Margaret Jurgensen, Montgomery County election director.

If voters still do not respond, their voter access card — used to access the machine — can be canceled. Then voters need to talk to the voter unit judge and will most likely be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot, she said.

Goldstein clarified that the restriction does not limit voters on how much time they have to make their decisions.

‘‘People need to understand that it’s not that you have two minutes to vote,” he said. ‘‘You have two minutes to press that button to give you more time.”

Still, Jurgensen said, voters who are informed and prepared to vote when they enter the booth can go through the entire ballot in less than two minutes.

So far, she added, the electronic touch-screen system has worked well, particularly for older voters.

‘‘Senior citizens love this system,” Jurgensen said. ‘‘If those individuals have any problems like palsy or arthritis in their hands, this is the easiest system.”

And the new option to enlarge the text on the voting machine screen is designed to make the process even easier.

‘‘I would think it would be very helpful,” said Kensington resident Lorraine Kennedy, 91. ‘‘I wear glasses, but I think it would help to have larger print.”

But as for the new time limit on the voting machine, some believe that senior citizens could be hindered more than helped.

‘‘The Democratic ballot is going to have about 70 names on it,” said Keith Steele, a resident at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg. ‘‘Some of us are getting a lot slower, so [a time limit] might worry me.”

For Kennedy, the time-out function is not a cause for worry at all.

‘‘Of course I’m going to have my sample ballot all marked before I go up there,” she said. ‘‘I’m not going to wait for the last minute [to decide] anything like that.”

With all of her votes set before entering the polling booth, Kennedy said casting them should not be a problem.

‘‘This is such a big ballot this time, there are so many things to vote for, I would certainly think you would want to have your mind made up,” she said.

Jurgensen said she has heard of some concerns, but that based on the Board of Election’s voter outreach efforts, ‘‘it hasn’t been a problem.”

Gordon Allen, another Asbury resident, said the time-out function didn’t concern him.

‘‘It sounds like something that is not too serious, as long as people are informed about it, that they’ll have to keep touching the screen, ahead of time,” he said.

He said that he used the electronic machine during the last election and found it easier to use than the punch system.

‘‘I found it very pleasant, very satisfactory,” Allen said. ‘‘The screen touching is a good idea.”