District 18 to preview touch-screen machines

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"We expect to have one machine on display in every precinct just to have voters to look at and hopefully get more familiar with," said Conway Belangia, Greenville County's election commission director.

Belangia said the iVotronic machines from Election Systems and Software should be arriving in Greenville County in the next couple of weeks. Greenville is one of 16 counties that will have the machines in time for the Nov. 2 general election, according to the state Election Commission.

Belangia said voters will actually cast their ballots using the old punch-card method but will have a chance after they vote to look at the touch-screen machines.

The Election Commission is working with party and state officials to figure out who will be eligible to vote in the District 18 Republican race between Tony Trout and County Council incumbent Steve Selby, Belangia said. He estimated there would be an answer by the middle of next week.

A new runoff would mean that only those who didn't participate in the June 8 Democratic primary would be eligible to vote in the District 18 Republican race. A whole new election would open the race to all registered voters in the district.

Trout won a June 22 runoff against Selby by 18 votes, but Selby successfully protested the result on the basis that some voters weren't eligible to cast ballots.

Belangia said the Sept. 14 date was picked for the rematch so that overseas voters would have at least 45 days to receive a ballot.

"Those requests started in January, and they collect all the way through the election," he said.

Anna B. Brutzman can be reached at 298-4394.