A record number of registered voters in the city prompted the City Council on September 15 to authorize $48,500 for the purchase of nine new voting machines in preparation for election day, November 4.
According to Sheri Iachetta, the city’s general registrar, in the month of August alone, close to 3,000 new voters registered, bringing the grand total to 26,085 from 23,799. “We have been really busy,” says Iachetta. With an increase of almost 400 new voters per week, Iachetta told Council only two options would be possible: either run a good public awareness campaign warning city residents of potentially long lines or buy more machines. Iachetta said the machines could be used at every precinct. “Charlottesville is very politically active,” she pointed out.
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Sherri Iachetta demonstrates how the new optical scanning voting machines work. |
As C-VILLE has previously reported, the influx of new voters has strained the city’s resources. Fears of hackers manipulating electronic voting machines led the General Assembly to pass a law in 2007 that prohibits local governments from purchasing new Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines, which is what the city currently owns. If localities need new voting machines, they are expected to turn to optical scanning machines that read paper ballots. Not everyone agrees that more paper is better. “We have 94 localities that use DRE machines,” said Iachetta in an interview. “And we love [the machines].”
The Associated Press reported last week that Virginia elections officials have requested an additional 200,000 voter registration forms to keep up with demand. Since January 1, the state’s voter registration has increased by 211,000 people to nearly 4.8 million voters.
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