Bristol, Damariscotta, Newcastle, Nobleboro and Waldoboro voters will notice a subtle change in ballots and a not-so-subtle change in the ballot box this Election Day.
All five towns will introduce Electronic Systems and Software DS200 optical scanning tabulation machines, essentially electric ballot boxes, this year.
The Department of the Secretary of State, with approximately $1.4 million in federal funds from the 2002 Help America Vote Act, signed a five-year lease for enough machines to equip every municipality in the state with at least one.
The Newcastle town office staff demonstrated the machine for The Lincoln County News during a test run Oct. 24.
The ballots have a somewhat different look. Instead of checking a box, voters will fill in an oval next to the name of the candidate they wish to vote for.
If a voter should fail to read the instructions and place a check or “X” in the oval instead of filling it in, the machine will still read the vote.
When the voter completes his or her ballot, he or she feeds the ballot into the machine. If the voter did not vote or “over-voted,” voting for two or more candidates in a single race, the machine’s screen will display an error message.
The machine sorts ballots that include write-in votes into a specific compartment, which allows the town staff to count those votes later.
Otherwise, at the end of the night, a town employee presses a few buttons and the machine prints out a report with the results of all races and ballot questions.
The state and town have a number of safeguards in place should anything go awry. Should the machine malfunction, the state has spares within an hour of any polling place in Maine.
Should the town office lose power, the machine has a backup power source good for three hours. Newcastle also has a generator on standby at the fire station. If all power sources fail, voters could still fill out their ballots and place them in a slot in the machine. Later, town staff would feed the unread ballots to the functioning machine.
All the ballots will be saved.
The state all but swears by the performance of the machines, calling them 99.99 percent accurate.
Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, in an e-mail to Newcastle Town Clerk Lynn Maloney, said she has supervised manual recounts for the state for 18 years and never found a discrepancy attributable to the machines.
The discrepancies the state did find “were found to be human error in completing the tally sheets or handling certain ballots that the machine could not fully tabulate (such as ballots with write-in votes),” Flynn wrote.
“These tabulators are fast, accurate and accountable,” she wrote.
Maloney, the Newcastle town clerk, said some citizens have expressed concern about the change, and she understands that concern. She wants to reassure those citizens, however, that the machines are accurate and safeguards are in place.
The flow of voters might slow down a little bit while everyone learns the system, but the machine will save hours of counting time, as well as labor costs for ballot clerks and town staff, she said.
Bristol Town Administrator Kristine Poland concurs. “Well, we won’t be up all night counting, so that’s great,” she said. “We’re really excited about it.”
Anyone who wants to register to vote on Election Day will need to present photo ID, such as a driver’s license; and proof of residency.
If the voter’s street address appears on their driver’s license, this satisfies the proof of residency requirement. If not, the voter must also present a document that bears their name and physical address, such as a bank statement or utility bill.
