LAWRENCE COUNTY Officials to explore touch-screen voting

There are no replacement parts available for the county's current machines.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Lawrence County officials are looking into touch-screen voting for the next election.
County commissioners have asked the county elections director to bring in companies that offer these types of machines to talk about a change.
Lawrence County now uses paper ballots that are put through an optical scanner to tabulate votes.
Election Director Marlene Gabriel said the county was informed that there are no longer replacement parts available from the machine manufacturer. The county bought the machines in 1985.
She had suggested that the county buy old machines from Mahoning County, Ohio, which has since gone to touch-screen voting.
But county commissioners said they think it might be worthwhile to buy touch-screen machines for the next election.
Deadline approaches
However, they must act within the next 60 days because they will be barred from working on election-related issues once petitions are circulated for the coming election. All three commissioners are up for election in 2003.
Commissioner Brian Burick noted that the touch-screen system will pay for itself over several years. The county must now buy paper for each election and pay extra employees to count write-in votes, he said.
The touch-screen system is paperless and immediately counts all write-in and regular votes, he said.
Burick said the estimated cost is about $1 million. He said the county would likely take out a loan through a bond issue to pay for the new machines.