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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A Utah election official observed the Democratic primary election in Mississippi last week and saw things go wrong.
Mississippi used the same touch-screen voting machines that will be used in Utah's June 27 primary.
"I wanted to learn from the experiences they were having," said Joe Demma, chief of staff to Utah's lieutenant governor.
Mississippi officials said the process went relatively smoothly, except for a few glitches.
However, Demma said that despite small turnouts, the state saw problems in nearly every county, and many polling places fell back to paper ballots.
Demma says Mississippi's issues were rooted in common themes that Utah has worked to avoid.
"In every single precinct I visited there was a different problem happening," Demma told The Salt Lake Tribune. "But they were all related to poor training and communication."
In one polling place, the workers had put the machine's memory cards in upside down.
At another, workers couldn't find the keys to the voting machines. In a third, poll workers simply didn't show up.
"All the problems were very easily remedied," Demma said. "They all involved the human element."
The Diebold electronic voting machines have been criticized by some voter groups and computer scientists who say they are vulnerable to fraud. Diebold and Herbert have stood by the ATM-like machines, saying they are secure when election workers are well-trained.
"We expect to have a certain amount of those kinds of problems," Demma said. But Mississippi's primary was run by party officials rather than county elections officials, as it will be in Utah, and that contributed to most of the problems, he said.
"It'll be a good test run for us," Demma said. "There will be bumps along the way. But the big difference will be having professionals run the elections rather than party volunteers."
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen has been preparing since the fall for the touch-screen debut.
The county has held 175 training sessions for its 2,000 poll workers.
Swensen said the machines have been taken to senior citizen gatherings, home and garden shows and community fairs.
"We want to provide an opportunity for people to operate the machines," she said.
In the next week, every registered voter in Salt Lake County will receive a postcard listing polling places for the primaries, along with jurisdictions and hours.
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On the Web:
Electronic voting demonstration: http://www.leaveyourprint.com/demo.html
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
