Voters to use new optical-scan ballots in King County

After 25 years of using the punch-card method of voting, King County will soon be using a new voting system called Accu-Vote, which has been successfully adopted in over 500 election jurisdictions nationwide. The Accu-Vote enhances the security, the accuracy and the timeliness of the almost obsolete punch-card system.

This will be part of a completely integrated voter registration and ballot tabulation system.

For the April 28 Special Election, the City of Kenmore and Snoqualmie Valley school district will be the first jurisdictions to use the new system. The rest of the county will switch to the Accu-Vote for the September primary.

Among the benefits of the new system are security, integrity and timeliness:

Security
• Only person to touch ballot once it has been voted is the voter.
• No need to transport ballots before they are counted.
• Optical scan technology is a tried and tested method in over 500 jurisdictions around country.
Integrity
• Voters will now be able to easily see the candidate(s) or ballot measure for which the voter is casting his/her vote
• When ballot is inserted into precinct tabulation device, the computer will be able to automatically tell if there were any over votes on the ballot and will not accept the ballot. The voter may choose to receive a new ballot to mark on.
• Ability to print out reports at precincts is a good check and balance against the paper ballots and the memory card which is used to transmit election results phoned over the phone to Election Central
Timeliness
• The election results are tabulated throughout the day and stored on a memory card which allows them to be transmitted and tallied county-side rapidly with little delay.
• Eliminates need to transport ballots from all over county before they can be counted.
• New voting system will reduce lines at polls and will make voting process more efficient.