Collin County Commissioners approved a new election system at the Jan. 28 meeting.

Commissioners in Collin County approved a new election system that will be implemented after the May election.Collin County's current touch-screen voting system, adopted in 2003, will be replaced by a new hybrid voting system, following approval at the Jan. 28 commissioners court meeting.With the new system, voters will still make their ballot selections digitally at polling locations, but following submission, the machine will print a paper copy of their selections, Collin County Election Administrator Bruce Sherbet said. This paper copy will then be placed into a ballot counter that will total the votes.The current system does not produce paper records and votes are tallied electronically.The new system will protect voters from accidentally overvoting by allowing them to review their ballot selections before submitting them to be counted, Sherbet said. It will also be beneficial in validating total votes when recounts are conducted."It's really moving into the direction of what you are seeing at the state and federal level," Sherbet said. "Recommendations are to move from just pure [electronic] type systems to ones that produce paper validation to the voters."The county will begin implementing the new system after the May 4 general election. The system is expected to be ready for voters by the November election.