GILROY
– A selected few Gilroy voters will have a chance to taste the
future of democracy Tuesday.
GILROY – A selected few Gilroy voters will have a chance to taste the future of democracy Tuesday.
Santa Clara County will be allowing voters at two Gilroy polling locations to test a Direct Recording Electronic Voting System that will take over the county’s punch-card ballot system for good in the November 2003 elections.
“They will be able to test the electronic voting in a simulated vote – the votes don’t actually count,” said Elma Rosas, election division coordinator for the county. “We want to get more familiar with the system, get input and feedback.”
Tuesday will be the first time electronic voting will be tested by citizens of Santa Clara County. The Federal Court has set a deadline of March 2004 for all counties across the country to have elec-tronic voting systems in place. The decision to replace the old punch-card voting systems comes following the 2000 presidential voting fiasco.
While there will be more than 30 electronic voting simulator systems on trial throughout the county, the only two in Gilroy will be at the Masonic Temple, 8387 Wren Ave., and the Gilroy Senior Center, 7371 Hanna St.
With the electronic system, votes will be tallied automatically by a computer program – eliminating the task of transporting ballot boxes to a county headquarters to be counted by hand.
“When the electronic voting is implemented it will save a lot of time and hassle,” said County District 1 Supervisor Don Gage, who along with his fellow supervisors decided to use the electronic voting systems only on a simulation basis for Tuesday’s election. “Right now Gilroy and Morgan Hill are the last towns in the county to get the results counted because of their location and that means people are having to stay up until one in the morning before they know the results.”
On Tuesday, three separate electronic polling providers will be vying for the right to provide the county with its electronic future voting system in 2003 – the deadline the county’s registrar office has set for the new ballot system to be implemented.
“We will use the input from Tuesday to decide exactly how we want to expand this system in the future,” Rosas said. “We were thinking of going live with some of the systems in this election, but we are looking for more citizen feedback before we try it for real.”
