PHOENIX MILLS — The Otsego County Board of Elections has purchased an electronic voting machine for this month’s primary election.
The Avante Vote Trakker is a computerized touchscreen model and is attached to a printer, which provides a paper ballot. The machine is installed at the Board of Elections Office in Middlefield and is available for disabled voters to use during the Sept. 12 primary election.
According to Lucinda Jarvis, the county’s Democratic deputy elections commissioner, the system cost about $8,000.
It is loaded with Windows 2000 Professional, an operating system that preceded Windows XP, which Microsoft will be phasing out after the end of this year.
The county purchased the system at the insistence of the state, which is being pressured by the federal government to replace its mechanical voting machines.
"I believe the state gave us three choices of machines and this one was the cheapest," Jarvis said.
The Avante has a sip-and-puff attachment and headphones to help voters who are blind or are unable to use the touchscreen.
Last month, the BOE asked county voters to contact the office if they anticipated using this machine and received two responses, Jarvis said. Other voters with physical impairments will continue to have the option of voting by absentee ballot.
Sheila Ross, Jarvis’s Republican counterpart, said Friday that the state is supposed to pay for the Avante, and the purchase will not reduce the $458,999 in state and federal money that the county is supposed to receive to buy and install new voting machines next year.
To receive this money, the county will have to contribute $22,950, or about 5 percent of the total, Ross said.
"We’re supposed to pay that money by the end of the year, and we do have it in our budget," she said.
Jarvis said the state’s latest timetable for changing voting machines calls for the county to receive new machines in April.
After that, the Avante and the lever machines are likely to be taken to be shelved, she said.
Two types of voting devices are under consideration — touchscreen models called direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, and optical scanners. With DREs, which look like very large televisions, people touch the screen to vote. Manufacturers are required by state law to have a paper backup system to assist with recounting ballots.
With optical scanners, people vote on paper ballots, which are then tabulated electronically. When recounts are required, the paper ballots are counted by hand.
It still is not clear which type of machine Otsego County will purchase, as Republican Elections Commissioner Charlotte Koniuto favors DREs and Democratic Elections Commissioner Hank Nicols favors optical scanners.
If the two commissioners cannot agree on a machine, the state will choose the county’s machines.