Greensboro, NC -- Guilford County's elections director said Friday that touchscreen voting machines are the most reliable way to cast a ballot, despite questions about their accuracy.
"Our voting system has more ways for the voters to confirm the accuracy of their vote than any kind of paper system or optical scan system," Gilbert said. "So I think we do give our voters far more opportunities to ensure the correctness of their ballot than any other type of voting system."
A couple dozen Guilford Co. voters have reported their machines lost calibration while they were early voting, which means they touched one part of the screen -- but the machine thought they were touching somewhere else. Some claimed when they touched one presidential candidate's name, the other's lit up. Gilbert points out the issue never prevented anyone from registering their vote for the candidate of their choice.
More than 130,000 people have early voted, he adds, which means only a small percentage of people have encountered problems. In fact, Gilbert said there were more problems with calibration issues in 2008.
The county won't use the same electronic touchscreen machines on Election Day as it has for early voting. The machines for Tuesday have already been set up and recalibrated. But Gilbert says they'll be checked again for accuracy on Election Day.
WFMY News 2