Maryland To Use Paper Ballots, Not Touch Screens, For Early Voting, Primary

The Maryland State Board of Elections has voted unanimously to scrap touch-screen voting machines in favor of paper ballots for early voting before the April 26 primary.

The 5-0 vote took place Thursday afternoon, after Elections Administrator Linda Lamone expressed concern about the touch-screen machines.

She says the format can create a disadvantage for candidates with last names that are further down the alphabet. She also says it can be confusing and time-consuming for voters to navigate between multiple pages of candidates.

Lamone says the screens are particularly challenging to display all of the candidates in one page, in races where there are a lot of candidates. She cited the Democratic race for Baltimore mayor and its 13 candidates as an example.

Officials initially wanted to use the machines for early voting because otherwise voters would have had to use multiple ballots to cast votes in multiple judicial, city council and congressional races.

Earlier today, Lamone expressed her concerns to a Senate committee.

Early voting takes place from April 14 until April 21.

Lamone says the paper ballots will also be used on Primary Election Day, April 26.

As for the General Election, the state is expected to use Touch Screen machines.

"Although most voters will not use ballot marking devices in the 2016 Presidential Primary Election, the State Board of Elections is confident in the ballot marking device technology and will be expanding its use in future elections," according to a State Board of Elections news release.

Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, said she welcomes the decision to return to paper ballots, but she says there were many problems with Touch Screen Voting machines, and she notes the board took so long to address them.

She noted the machines had a similar problem last year during Rockville's municipal elections.