Heller gives preview of Nevada’s paper printout voting machines

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, July 16, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Dean Heller demonstrated new machines Clark County voters can choose to use in the fall elections today.

On the new ballot machines, created by Sequoia Voting Systems, voters use a touch screen to cast their votes, then see paper printout under a glass plate next to the computer screen. Once satisfied the two match and everything is correct, the ballot is cast with the touch of a button.

Nevada will be the first state that has certified a combination paper and electronic systems.

"I feel confident in the knowledge that Nevada will produce the most accurate, most secure and most valid election in the nation in 2004," Heller said at the National Press Club in Washington.

The machines will be used in the Sept. 7 primary and Nov. 2 general election in all counties statewide, but Clark County voters will only see a portion of the new machines at polling places on the election days.

Heller said that state did not have enough time or the correct technology to swap all of Clark County's current voting machines to the new models. In Clark County 2,400 older electronic machines will be combined with 750 of the new machines on Election Day, he said. Each polling place will have at least one new machine, and all early votes, which can be cast two weeks before the election, will be on the new machines, Heller said.

The state spent $9 million on the new machines out of $20 million in federal funds it will receive over the next several years to update its election system.