MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Early voting kicked off Wednesday in Shelby County, where for election organizers, a long, long wait is over.
For the first time since 2006, voters cast their ballots on new state-of-the-art machines those running elections said are more secure, easier to use and quicker to count votes.
The early reviews were good from early voters at a site in Whitehaven.
"It's something new but I liked it," Ray Smith said.
"I like it, it's pretty simple, pretty easy," Shirley Cain added.
A bipartisan group this year recommended the Shelby County Commission buy the new machines from Election Systems & Software, after considering more than a dozen factors, including easiness to use and security.
"It's just much more secure, the standards for these machines are just exponentially higher than the old machines. We know more about security than we did 20 years ago," Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips said.
With the new machines, voters insert their ballot card, make their choices on a touch screen and review their choices. A ballot is printed and if there are no errors, voters place that ballot on a second machine to be counted.
"There's a paper backup," Phillips added. Whether you vote on machine or by hand-marked paper ballot, there's a paper backup that could be audited."
The new technology also means votes will be counted faster, and results posted sooner, on Election Night.
"Instead of reading 1,100 and 1,500 memory cards, each of which took between 90 seconds and two minutes to do, we only have less than 250 memory sticks which read about as fast as you can put them in the machine, so we are talking 5 to 10 seconds," Phillips said.
Early voting in Shelby County and across the state for eligible voters runs through November 3.
You can find a list of dates, times and locations online.