KAHULUI - Observers from the community and Democratic and Republican parties this week said they were satisfied after testing new voting machines that will be used in this fall's primary and general elections, The Maui News reported today.

Volunteers filled out ballots and ran them through the machines, comparing the vote count to the ballots they actually cast.

"They can be satisfied that their votes were accurately recorded," said state Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin.

The voting machines provided by contractor Hart Intercivic look similar to ones used in prior elections, but have slight differences. Observer Gerri Kerrigan of the Democratic Party said she liked the way voters could feed their ballots into the new machines face-up or face-down.

"I think the machines are really easy to use and convenient," she said at the test on Wednesday.

The Hart machines are programmed with specific information for each voting district when a computer card is inserted. Some observers were concerned that the new system made it harder for the machines to be tested.

"The testing procedure is less random," said Republican Party observer Charles Ferreira.

For the test, all the computer cards were programmed to accept absentee ballots, so observers couldn't see how the machines would function when programmed for specific voting locations.

Also, the new machines won't accept the same ballot more than once, so observers could not use their ballots to test multiple machines, as they had in the past, he said. That made the machines harder to test, but it also made them more secure, he said.

"Overall, I have confidence in the system," Ferreira said.

Observer Eleanor Aquinde also would have liked to test more machines. "That's what we're here for," she said.

Aquinde said she jumped at the chance to volunteer when she was first asked to be an election observer years ago.

"I said sure, because after I voted, I never knew what happened behind the scenes," she said.

Marcia Godinez, observing her third election, said participating in the process was a great experience that made her "totally confident" in the voting system.

"I think anyone who's skeptical should volunteer to be an observer," she said.

After Tuesday's test, the voting machines were to be sealed with unique, serialized tags and stored until the primary election on Sept. 20.

* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.