TAMPA Hillsborough County commissioners unanimously approved a contract today for new optical scan voting machines.
The county will pay $5.75 million to buy the machines from Premier Election Solutions. The Florida secretary of state's office is providing $2.5 million toward the purchase. Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said one of the reasons his staff chose Premier was its capabilities for people with disabilities.
Commissioners in the morning delayed action on the purchase after several women with disabilities complained they just found out about the contract this week and said the disabled population did not have an opportunity to test the machines.
By the afternoon, though, those concerns had been addressed and commissioners unanimously approved the purchase. The machines will be used in the primary and general elections later this year.
The state decided last year that counties with computer touch-screen voting machines need to replace them with machines that provide a paper ballot. Hillsborough and other counties bought the touch-screens systems in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election.
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