ALLEN, Texas, March 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sixty-three Illinois counties deployed optical scan and touch-screen voting stations from Diebold Election Systems for the March primary election with positive results. The majority of the counties had already used Diebold's optical scan system for several years. However, this was the first Illinois election in which Diebold's touch-screen voting station with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail printer was used, enabling blind and physically challenged voters to cast their ballot privately and independently, meeting Help America Vote Act requirements.
A total of 5,300 Diebold touch-screen and optical scan voting stations were deployed by Illinois jurisdictions for the primary election. More than two million registered voters in nearly 3,000 precincts had the opportunity to vote on Diebold machines during the election.
DuPage County, the second largest county in Illinois with more than 550,000 registered voters, was the largest Illinois jurisdiction to use Diebold's voting solutions. DuPage County deployed approximately 340 optical scan and 340 touch-screen units.
"Our Diebold system performed commendably, was well accepted by the voters of DuPage County and enabled us to effectively meet federal accessibility requirements," stated Robert Saar, Executive Director of the DuPage County Elections Commission. "The March primary election was the first time DuPage County offered early voting to our electorate, and the touch-screen systems were used to record ballot selections from all early voters. The touch-screen stations with voter-verifiable paper audit trail printers were very well received by voters, and the paper audit trail proved to be reliable and 100 percent accurate, as verified by our post-election recount. Tabulation of early voting and election day optical scan and touch-screen results was an easy process with Diebold's unified election management software."
Diebold Election Systems, Inc. is a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Diebold, Incorporated , a global leader in providing integrated self-service delivery systems and services. Headquartered in Allen, Texas, Diebold Election Systems provides high-quality voting technology to jurisdictions of all sizes, along with comprehensive service and support capability, and is committed to elections accuracy, security and integrity. For more information on Diebold Election Systems, visit the company's Web site at http://www.dieboldes.com/, or call 1-800-433-VOTE.
