Starting with the upcoming election, Evanston residents no longer punch in their votes. Penciled-in forms and touch-screens will replace punch cards in the upcoming election.

Also starting this year, residents can vote early without submitting an absentee ballot and register to vote until two weeks before the primary election.

Between Feb. 27 and March 16, Evanston residents can vote at the Evanston Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave. The primary election is March 21.

“Early voting is crucial to (students) because primary elections are during Spring Break,” said Weinberg freshman Ryan Erickson, who helped register students Thursday at Norris University Center.

The new voting technology and schedules aim to make registration and voting easier and more accurate, City Clerk Mary Morris said.

In previous elections, people who could not make it to the polls on election days had to request an absentee ballot and provide one of the accepted excuses. Valid excuses include conflicts such as jury duty, religious holidays and being out of town.

“If somebody said they didn’t vote because they were busy, that excuse is gone,” said Judy Hoffman, voter service chairwoman for the Evanston League of Women Voters.

The last day for regular voter registration is Feb. 21, but a new late registration program from Feb. 22 to March 7 lets residents vote absentee.

An informal group of Northwestern students will help voters register from noon to 4 p.m. today on the ground floor of Norris. They also helped register students Thursday.

“It seems like Northwestern students are a lot more apathetic than other college students,” Erickson said.

Still, Weinberg junior Dan Marlin, who also helped with registration, said most students were interested in registering or said they were already registered in Evanston or their hometown.

Registration generally increases during presidential election years, Morris said. Between March 2004 and February 2005, 11,031 Evanston residents registered to vote. About 170 people have registered in the past year, which Morris said is a bit low.

“If there’s no election, people kind of forget about it,” Morris said. “Then some sign up for primaries, and then it picks up.”

Those who vote at the polls this year will find two new systems replacing punch cards.

“I don’t think it’s hard,” Morris said. “But it’s a change. Anytime there’s a change, there’s confusion.”

All voters can choose to use an optical scan system or a touch-screen system. Although anyone can use the touch-screens, priority will go to people with disabilities.

The touch-screen system includes a keyboard with braille and an audio ballot for blind and illiterate residents. It also has a large font option and adjusts to wheelchair height.

Although the touch-screen system keeps a paper record secured inside the machine, some voters feel more secure writing on paper instead of using electronics, said Jan Czarnik, director of voter registration for suburban Cook County.

In the primary elections each polling place will have one touch-screen system, so officials said they expect most people to use the scan-in sheets.

“They’re going to be the way we vote in the future,” Czarnik said. “But getting more is a matter of resources.”

The new equipment, which cost the federal government $24 million, is the result of the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

When the 2000 presidential elections in Florida called the punch-card voting system into question, Congress passed the act to upgrade systems. The act said voting systems must comply with federal standards by 2006.

To help people use the new systems, the League of Women Voters has sponsored demonstrations of the new systems by Cook County officials.

Cook County focuses voter-education efforts on groups more likely to vote in primaries and who might be less familiar with the technology, such as senior citizens. People who have used the punch-card system for the past 30 years are wary of the change, Czarnik said.

“For younger people, particularly college students, this is a piece of cake,” Czarnik said.

Reach Elizabeth Gibson at [email protected].