County clerk casts a 'vote' — for help

Complicated federal voting requirements are stretching the Salt Lake County clerk so thin she's now considering asking private companies for help.

Sherrie Swensen must find a way to train 3,000 poll workers on complicated new electronic voting software while balancing a slew of other issues related to the Help America Vote Act.

To accomplish the laundry list of tasks, Swensen said Friday that she may hire private companies to train poll workers and move the expensive Diebold voting machines to and fro. The county is spending $2.6 million this year to pay for electronic voting.

"It's such a large project," Swensen said. "We need help."

The Help America Vote Act requires each county to implement a voting system that will allow equal access to disabled voters while also allowing all voters to verify their selections, correct errors and be notified of votes for more than one candidate.

Davis and Box Elder counties went through a test-run with the new system in the November 2005 election, and officials there say things went smoothly. Utah's other counties will get their first crack at the new voting equipment in June's primary.

But before that can happen, Swensen said plenty of work remains to be done, and the first task is training poll workers.

Poll workers used to attend a three-hour training session on punch cards and legislative issues just before the primary. Now, some of the poll workers must sit through an additional four hours of training.

Instructors also face more work. In the past, two instructors taught 18 large sessions with as many as 300 student poll workers. The instructors now can expect as many as 140 sessions this year, as class sizes must be reduced to make sure everyone understands how to use the equipment.

Swensen said the best way to handle the task is to hire a private company that can teach poll workers annually, rather than the county consistently re-training the trainers.

The county is actively recruiting poll workers, who will be paid $120 a day.

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E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com