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Key States' Plans to Overhaul Voting Systems

Electronic voting machines — once seen as the trendy gadgets of the election world — are losing some of their stature.

Several states are banishing them in time for November's elections, in favor of old-fashioned paper ballots that can be electronically scanned and counted.

"2006 was the high point for electronic machines. Clearly, their numbers are starting to come down," says Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, Inc., a consulting firm that works with state governments on such technical matters.

Touch-screen voting machines became popular after the 2000 presidential race between then-Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, when confusing punch-card paper ballots led to thousands of Florida votes being cast aside.

But electronic voting machines have also proved fallible, or at the very least, raised questions about their reliability. In 2006 in Sarasota, Fla., 18,000 ballots cast on touch-screen machines did not show any votes in a close congressional election. There's an ongoing debate about why this happened.

Brace estimates that 50 percent of all registered voters in the U.S. will use paper ballots this year — but not necessarily in time for the upcoming primaries in delegate-rich states.

Here's a glance at what some states are doing to overhaul their voting systems.

Florida: Several Florida counties are dumping their touch-screen voting machines in time for the Jan. 29 primary. Instead, residents will use machines known as optical scanners that will allow voters to fill in their ballots by hand and then feed them into electronic machines to scan their choices. The counties making the switch back to paper ballots are home to roughly half of Florida's registered voters. The entire state will have to use this system for the general election.

California: After a $1 million comprehensive review of the voting system, the secretary of state decided that several of California's electronic voting machines were faulty. Now, in time for the Feb. 5 primary, the secretary of state has ruled that all electronic voting machines must leave a paper trail.

New Jersey: New Jersey residents will vote with electronic voting machines in the Feb. 5 primary, much to the disappointment of some activists. Lawmakers originally wanted the state agency that oversees elections to retrofit all electronic machines with backup paper printouts, but the agency was not able to meet the lawmakers' deadline. Now, the deadline has been pushed back until June, which means the retrofitting should be complete in time for November's general election.

Ohio: Similar to California, the Ohio secretary of state also did a huge review of the state's voting systems. The 57 counties that use touch-screens must switch to optical scanners by the November election. According to the secretary of state's office, voters who feel uncomfortable with touch-screens have the right to ask for a paper ballot on primary day. Ohio has 88 voting counties in total.

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Nancy Cook