Mercer County recently received 162 ExpressVote machines and 52 DS200 vote scanners which tabulate votes, said County Clerk Verlin Moye.
"It's the latest, the greatest of voting systems; of course, it's been time tested for, I think the secretary (Mac Warner) said, seven years," Moye said. "They have a projected life of 20 years and the technology is there, of course, and the security is there. These machines and all machines have to pass the scrutiny of the Federal Election Commission as well as the State Election Commission. They both have to certify and approve the sale of these machines and that sale and approval is based on their security and their tabulating functions, their hackability, that kind of thing."
Moye said voting machines are reviewed by several parties before they can be used for elections.
"Everything is scrutinized by disinterested parties as well as parties on both sides," Moye said. "There are county clerks, secretaries of states, attorneys, computer scientists on these boards to review these machines."
Two grants supplied the $900,614.85 needed for buying the new voting machines and equipment.
"We were fortunate last year to have applied for and received two grants," Moye sid. "One was the HAVA grant, which is the Help America Vote Act grant. That was $409,000. And then of course by the restrictions on the grant, the county has to match 50 percent. We had in the county some of the American Relief Act money so we were able to fill the rest of the void by the ARP grant funding."
The new machines are ready for us, he said. The next steps including additional training and introducing the machines to the voters.
"We have a little bit of training under our belt," Moye said. "We've trained some and we've got more training to do, and then we're going to take these machines to a few of our community centers and introduce the public to them. We also have a demonstration set-up downstairs."
The new machines are easier to use than the models they are replacing, Moye said. Besides being easier to use, they eject a card which voters can use to confirm how they voted.
"From there, the card goes into the DS200 scanner and its scanned and collected," Moye said. "And at the end of the night we take a thumb drive and we just upload it onto that thumb drive and we take that and print our paper trail; and then from there we will upload that into the election night recording system which will flash that to the Secretary of State's Office."
West Virginia Secretary Mac Warner visited Mercer County on Wednesday and spoke about the new machines.
" There's going to be that initial change for the voters and the poll workers, but I think once people vote on it one time, they'll be happy with it," Warner said. "The analogy I like to use is ordering a sandwich at Sheetz. You know, you say you want this type of bread, you want mayonnaise, hold the pickles, that type of thing. It's the same technology to pick one candidate verses another. It's just that simple. The key is it spits that ballot out and you get to look at it."
"The new system has been tested and tried and has been very successful," Moye said. "We're just really excited for the public. It will be used in the May Primary in 2024."
© 2023 the Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, W.Va.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
