The Montgomery County Commissioners announced yesterday that they approved a $5.8 million contract with Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, Colorado to
provide a voter-marked paper balloting system with a verifiable paper trail. According to the release the paper trail can be audited to ensure votes are being counted accurately.

The new system will replace the current electronic push-button voting machines the county purchased in 1996. The county plans to have the new system in place
for the primary election in May of next year.

“Voters will still be able to privately cast their ballot, just like the current system, and the simple paper ballot will give them the highest confidence that their votes will be accurately recorded and counted,” said Dr. Val Arkoosh, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. “I’m so pleased that we approved this new voting system today which incorporates the suggestions we heard from voters.”
In most cases, voters will use a pen to fill out a ballot and have an opportunity to check it for accuracy before submitting it to scanner that tabulate the votes and keep the ballot in a secure container for audits or recounts.

When the voter is done filling out the ballot, the touchscreen machine will print out a paper ballot that the voter can verify before submitting it for tabulation.

Each polling place will also have an ADA touchscreen machine that can be used to select candidates.