Check out new voting machines

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June 4, 2006

Anonymous The Meridian Star Sun Jun 04, 2006, 11:34 PM CDT

With little of interest or much importance on Tuesday’s ballot in East Mississippi, even the most faithful of voters might be inclined to sit this one out.

Here’s a good reason to vote anyway: Tuesday’s Democratic primary is the first opportunity for voters to use new touchscreen voting machines that have been purchased in most Mississippi counties.

The machines were purchased to get the state in compliance with the Help America Vote Act, a federal law designed to prevent a recurrence of the 2000 presidential election fiasco in Florida, when “hanging chads” entered the American parlance.

A short ballot like Tuesday’s is the perfect opportunity for voters who haven’t taken advantage of recent public demonstrations by election commissioners to get a feel for the new technology. The machines are very user-friendly, but still, voters might prefer their first experience with them to be in a low-key setting. That way, there will be some familiarity when citizens return to the polls for November’s general election.

The only contested race on Tuesday’s ballot in Lauderdale County is the choice of a sacrificial lamb to take on U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. The Democratic contenders — all political lightweights — are state Rep. Erik Fleming, D-Clinton; Long Beach businessman and minister James O’Keefe; Hattiesburg gadfly Catherine M. Starr; and Bill Bowlin, a Hickory Flat business consultant.

Of the four, we prefer Bowlin, who has impressive academic and business credentials. The 50-year-old Bowlin obtained an MBA from Tulane and has spent a couple of decades in the private sector. He’s no stranger to the political arena, having run unsuccessfully for a Northeast Mississippi congressional seat in 1990 and 1994. Bowlin is the Democrats’ best hope against Lott, who, barring an unforeseen scandal, is a shoe-in for re-election to the Senate come November.

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