AP and staff reports

ST.

Monday, July 23, 2001

ST. PAUL – Minnesota is making progress toward making sure that every person’s vote counts, but the state isn’t there yet.

The Legislature has allocated $1.9 million to finance matching grants for cities, counties and townships to buy high-tech optical vote-scanning machines.

Previously, local governments were responsible for buying the voting equipment. Under the new program, the state picks up half the tab.

The new equipment scans ballots at the polling place and immediately spits out any that contain errors so the voters can correct their mistakes.

According to County Auditor Dennis Distad, the six precincts in Albert Lea plus the Bancroft Township precinct already have the optical precinct counters. The rest of the 33 precincts in the county have optical scanning for counting purposes, but do not have the technology at the precincts.

&uot;A lot of the responsibility right now is on the voter to be aware of voting procedures,&uot; Distad said. &uot;Your voter has to pay attention.&uot;

Distad said the precinct counters give voters the opportunity to correct overvotes. But each machine costs at least $4,000-$6,000, plus the expense of programming, making the upgrade expensive, he said.

&uot;If precincts are interested in this program to upgrade, we would certainly help them look into it,&uot; he said.

Distad thinks Freeborn County’s system is at least adequate, but in Mower County, every precinct outside the city of Austin is still using hand-counted paper ballots, Distad said.

Statewide, only one-third of Minnesota’s 4,065 precincts have the new equipment, but those precincts include about two-thirds of the state’s voters.

If the scanning system had been used throughout Minnesota last year, it would have prevented 18,471 presidential votes from being thrown out because of voting errors, said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer. About 2.4 million votes were cast.