SMETHPORT -ðPoll workers from around McKean County are getting
acquainted with the new way to vote this week.

About 200 of the people who will be on hand May 16 to manage the
voting process and help voters are taking orientation classes in
the classrooms of the 911 Center Monday and today.

The machines are small, portable electronic devices, each with
an interactive touch screen, much like the one used for ordering
sandwiches at Sheetz. The way they work will be familiar to anyone
who uses a computer, particularly for those who have paid bills or
ordered goods online. The offices to be filled and the names of
candidates for the positions come up on the screen one after
another, and all voters have to do is touch the name of the person
they want to vote for, then move on to the next office.

When the voter gets to the end of the ballot, he or she will
have a chance to review what’s been selected, and the machine will
remind the voter if a blank has been left. It also will not allow
more than the names to be selected than their are positions
open.

At Monday’s session, poll officials from Bradford City and
several other localities got the two-hour orientation, both with
written materials and lectures, and then some close up instruction
in small groups around the machines themselves.

Kane and surrounding municipalities were slated for the training
today.

The workers have to be thoroughly familiar with the operations
so they can explain things to voters, to handle any problems and
questions and to take care of such things as absentee and
provisional ballots, which are done on paper.

The Help America Vote Act made the old lever-style machines,
along with punch cards like those used in Florida and many other
places, obsolete and now counties must provide on of several
approved electronic machines or use old-fashioned paper
ballots.

The machines McKean County has chosen are made by Election
Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., one of the world’s leading
manufacturers of election equipment.

In addition to the touch screen, they include an audio option
for visually impaired people and have extendable screens to block
other from seeing how people using the screen voted.

In McKean County, all precincts except Sergeant Township will
use the machines; voters in that township rejected machines at the
last election, but will be asked again in May to come in line with
the rest of the county.

Anyone with a computer and an online connection can see how the
new machines work by going to the McKean County Web site at
mckeancountypa.org; then scroll down past the yellow bar that says
2006 budget to the next yellow bar, Electronic Voting Machine
Demo.

Click on that bar and an interactive demonstration of how the
machine works will lead you through the process, pretty much the
same as you will see it in the voting booth on May 16.