September 19, 2002
Tifton-
"Florida experience unbelieveable makes you want to say Flori-DUH!" Secretary of state Cathy Cox said.
Electronic voting machines now in Florida, but still voters are left frustrated. But when voters head to the polls here in Georgia on November 5, Cox says things will be different.
"Can't say you've got new voting machines and we've improved elections," she said. "You've got to plan and got to train."
So that's what Cox is doing, training voters Thursday in Tifton.
But mostly she's relying on her staff to make sure every poll worker in the state knows exactly how to use the state's 19,000 machines, at a cost of $54 million.
Why make the change? Cox says as bad as Florida was back in 2000, Georgia was worse, with more than 3 percent of votes going uncounted.
But things went well in the electronic voting pilot program last year in Dawson, and now she expects the same, even for voters not familiar with computers.
"When they hear voting on computer, many assume need computer skills," Cox said. "But once you see it, surprised so simple."
Simple, but still something new. That should attract more people out to the polls, but things might move a little more slowly.
All of the machines being used in Georgia were manufactured by Diebold. They will also be training 2 poll workers per precinct. None of the voting machines used in Florida were made by Diebold.
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