ALLEN, Texas — Sixty-three Illinois counties deployed optical scan and touchscreen 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 touchscreen 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 touchscreen 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 touchscreen units.
"Our Diebold system performed commendably, was well accepted by the voters of DuPage County and enabled us to effectively meet federal accessibility requirements," said 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 touchscreen systems were used to record ballot selections from all early voters. The touchscreen 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 touchscreen results was an easy process with Diebold's unified election management software."
