Published: June 07, 2006 12:35 am      

Poll workers iron out the kinks

Slight glitches at Lauderdale County voting precincts, including Central Fire Station and Poplar Springs Elementary School, were quickly solved, resulting in a successful Democratic primary election Tuesday, officials said.

Ann Watts, chairman of the county’s election commission, said poll workers did a great job with the county’s touchscreen voting machines, which were used for the first time in an election.

“Most times, there were not problems. The cards may have been pulled out too soon, causing the encoders to be unable to read the voter-access cards. But once they (poll workers) got used to it, they were OK,” Watts said.

Brenda Barksdale, manager of the Central Fire Station voting precinct, said an encoder at the precinct would not work.

“We were instructed to used the backup encoder or call the help line at the circuit clerk’s office and they would send a technician to help us if there were any technical problems we could not work out,” Barksdale said.

Voter Jinnell Miller, the first person to vote at Central Station on Tuesday, noticed the problem with the encoder.

“I think the voting will be better once all the kinks are worked out. It is good to have the machines and will be easier during larger elections,” Miller said. “It is good there was an election that was small for the machines to have a test run and for everyone to get used to using them.”

Although turnout was light, poll workers did everything they could to keep the voting process easy for the voters.

Carolyn Hunter, receiving and returning manager for the Poplar Springs precinct, said workers set up nine machines — but only had about 11 voters by midday.

Russell Boyette, election manager at the Meridian Jaycee Building precinct, said the machines were not a problem but people were.

“Our biggest problem today was people did not want to read the machines,” Boyette said. “If they would read them, the voting process would be much easier because the machines are self-explanatory.”

Voters Jessie and Sadie Gale were pleased with the machines.

“They are much easier to use than the old method of voting,” Jessie Gale said.

Ellis Ivy, Jaycee Building receiving and returning manager, said most people seemed to think the machines were easy to use.

Frances Boyette said most of the people who came to vote knew what to do and did really well. Boyette is manager at the Jaycee Building.

Watts said the election was sponsored by the Democratic Executive Committee, which hired all of the poll workers, but workers selected or returning for the next election will be retrained before the next election in November to ensure that proper use of the machines is understood.

“Just like anything new, once the problems were solved, everything ran smoothly, but after this election the poll workers and voters will love the machines,” Watts said.