As noted by several others, we are less than 8 weeks from the June Primary election, and decertifying equiment that will be used then would be unwise. The State Board should allow any locality that has pending June Prmary elections to continue use of WINVote DRE equipment for those elections only, and procure new equipment for the November, 2015 General Election.

For localities with no scheduled June primaries, their equipment should be decertified now, and they can start the process to procure new equipment, with delivery after the July1 fiscal year start for budgeting purposes if necessary.

As localities have been unable to buy new DREs per Code, many localities now have woefully too few DREs for voters, and lines get worse, turning voters away. Here in Spotsylvania County, the Fiscal Impact statement for SB827, which would have decertified all DREs by July 2016, stated replacing 62 machines would cost about $314K. But with a registrant count of 82,000, and with 24.2-627 requiring 1 DRE per every 750 registered voterd per precinct, that would require 110 machines! No wonder we had 2-3 hour lines in 2012!

With optical scan equipment, you can set up as many privacy stations as you want, with the only wait being for the 15-20 seconds for the ballot to be  tabulated.  The actual lines in the precinct where I am Chief are at check-in at the pollbook, if we have lines at all.

Please decertify the WINVote this year.