New voting method debuts today

Voters in Los Angeles County won’t find the familiar punch
cards at polling places today when they vote in the municipal
elections.

They also won’t find the new Touchscreen voting
system.

Instead they will be greeted with Inkavote, the new voting
system that will be in place until sufficient funds are found to
install electronic Touchscreen voting.

“The punch card was banned, so we are using Inkavote as an
interim replacement voting system,” said Kathy Tacawy, a
spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office.
“Touchscreen will be put in place later when adequate funds
are in place.”

Inkavote is an optical scan voting system that involves
inserting the ballot into a voting device that is connected to a
voting booklet. When voters mark their choices in the booklet, the
device makes a corresponding mark on the ballot.

In that respect, the system is similar to the punch card system,
but in place of punching holes in the ballot, voters instead mark
their ballots with special inking pens. Ballots are then counted by
special electronic scanning devices.

“Inkavote uses a very similar device to punch
cards,” Tacawy said, “so voters already have a
familiarity with it. We’ve introduced the new system to
voters through the sample ballots. I don’t think there will
be any difficulties.”

The elections today involve votes for measures and offices up
for reelection from a total of 82 jurisdictions in Los Angeles
County. There are a total of 466 candidates up for election to fill
199 different offices from each of the various districts. Voters
can also vote for seven different measures.

This past February, the California Secretary of State and later
the Federal Court banned punch card voting in California, effective
for the March 2004 election.

Meanwhile, in August 2002 the Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors created a plan that would phase in the new Touchscreen
voting technology. An estimated $100 million is needed for the
installation of the new Touchscreen system, which is planned to be
phased in by the November 2005 elections.

Inkavote voting is scheduled to be used in today’s general
elections as well as in the March presidential primary election
next year. However, once the Touchscreen system is in place,
Inkavote will likely be phased out and used for absentee
voting.

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