Ballots in English and Spanish will be available during advance voting and on election day, November 2.
Director of elections Anne Phillips says when you access the machine you'll receive a prompt much like what you see at an ATM.
"The first screen the voter will see will be a screen that asks 'do you want an English or a Spanish ballot?'," Phillips said.
Phillips said although this is a test of bilingual voting for the state, the Spanish language ballots that are cast, will, of course, be counted. "...just to be sure that our system works well with it and how we want it to look."
There are 1,169 Hispanics registered "active" voters in Hall County for the November elections. That's up from 889 who were registered for the July 20 primaries.
Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox said in April in announcing the pilot program that there will be no cost to taxpayers because the voting machines already have the capability of creating Spanish language ballots.
"The great part...is there really is no cost other than cost we incur in makings the translation," Cox said. "As compared to having paper types of ballots where you would literally have to print ballots in different languages."
She says bilingual voting could be mandated should Hispanic citizens reach a point where they make up five percent of the population in a county.
"Given the growth of the hispanic population in Hall County," Cox said, "it is likely that Hall County could be one of the first to face that mandate."
Advance voting will continue all week, daily Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. but only at the elections office at Pearl Nix Parkway and Dawsonville Highway.
Phillips said jokingly Saturday that it doesn't look like anyone will show up at the polls election day. "Half," she said laughing, "are voting absentee and the rest tell me they'll vote (early)." Phillips says there has been a "tremedous" number of requests for absentee ballots.
NUMBER OF REGISTERED VOTERS
The number of registered voters in Hall County has increased by more than 4,000 since the July 20 primaries. Phillips says more than 61,000 "active" voters are now registered. That compares to about 57,000
for the primaries. When registration for the November 2 elections closed earlier this month, she said she had noticed a surge in the number of "young people" who were signing up.
Voters in Georgia are divided into "active" and "inactive." Phillips says "active" voters are those who "vote fairly often" and/or "let us know when they have moved." An "inactive" voter, she says, is one who is eligible to vote but has not voted in the last two presidential elections "or has moved and not notified us." (See separate story for a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the number of registered voters.)
VOTER INFORMATION CARDS
Phillips says please check your voter information cards to locate your polling place before you head to the polls whether its for early voting or on November 2.
"(In addition), if they have lost/misplaced them, call us prior to election day," Phillips said. "In 2000, our telephones were tied up with that type of call and it was hard for the poll workers to get through to us."
http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/10/149197