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Richard Piatt Reporting In next Tuesday's primary election in Utah voters, for the first time will use touch screens to pick their candidates.
There's been a lot of work and money spent to make this election as smooth as possible.
Voting next Tuesday will just be a matter of touching a screen. But getting to this point hasn't been so simple, and it hasn't been cheap either.
Practice makes perfect: That's what they're saying in Salt Lake County when it comes to setting up the new voting machines. Voters in Utah's most populated county will be counting on 17-hundred people--like Lynn Wagner--to set them up correctly.
Lynn Wagner/ Touch Screen Technician: "We've both been to training classes. And this is just a volunteer to come back and do it again so you don't forget."
The electronic voting machines are a lot different than the punch card stations election judges set up before. Now, touch screen technicians will run things.
You can think of the new voting machines as a cross between an ATM and a video slot machine. Take your card and slide it in till it clicks. The screen will give you instructions. Touch next and here comes my ballot. I just touch the candidate that I want, touch next.
At this point you can actually go back and make changes if you need to. I'm not going to do that, so I'll print my ballot on the printer. Then I cast my ballot, take the card and give it back to them. I'm done.
Can things go wrong? It's possible. That's why there's a plan for that, too.
Sherrie Swenson/ Salt Lake County Clerk: "I think I might be too optimistic to think that there wouldn't be bumps. But I feel we're prepared to overcome those situations."
The Lieutenent Governor is running a 'Leave your print' ad until election day: part of the 24 and a half million dollar switch-over to computerized ballots.
Hopefully, with all the training and rehearsing on these machines, the hardest part of election day for voters will be picking the candidates.
