Clayton County voters get demo of new voting machines

RIVERDALE, ga. - Voters in Clayton County got a hands-on demonstration Wednesday of the state's new electronic voting machines.

FOX 5 was the only television station at the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale as representatives from the Georgia Secretary of State's Office and Dominion Voting explained the updated voting system. 

"We're going to hit every single county, because it's really important that we engage voters, that they can see what it is and we want to do all that before the presidential primary that's coming up on March 24," explained Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

It has been 17 years since the state upgraded its voting system and this one, while similar, has some notable changes. Voters use a touch screen to make their selections, but instead of relying solely on a card to record them, the ballot marking device also prints a paper ballot that they can review for accuracy. Once a voter is satisfied that it is correct, they feed it into an electronic ballot box, which scans a digital image of the ballot as well.

"You take your ballot and put it inside of the talley," said Paul Q. Fortson, who attended the demonstration. "I think that that is probably what gave me the most comfort that my vote would actually be counted and securely counted."

As lawmakers at the State Capitol debated what type of voting system to adopt, some expressed support for hand-marked paper ballots because of concerns about election security. Raffensperger, however, believes the BMD machines are secure and will reduce the risk of voter error.

"We want to make sure that we capture voter intent," Raffensperger said. "With a ballot marking device that's printed out, we don't have to worry about what did that 'x' mean?  What did that 'x' and a dot mean?"

State Rep. Rhonda Burnough, D-Riverdale, voted against the purchase of these new machines during the legislative session but said she felt better about them after seeing them in person.

"The most important thing now is just making sure that people are registered to vote and that they come out and vote.  So, yes, I am pleased with this machine at this time," Burnough said. 

According to Raffensperger, the state purchased 32,000 of the new machines and they plan to have all of them distributed to county elections officials in time for the March primary.

"Rest assured that we are running hard.  We have to actually put out over 500 machines a day," he explained.  "So we'll be working really hard to get everything in place before the end of January so all the election directors, all their poll workers will have time for training." 

Six pilot counties will be the first in the state to use the machines to conduct municipal elections this November.