The first of Warren County’s new voting machines has arrived as officials in the courthouse begin gearing up for elections this year.

The machine, a touch-screen Diebold about the size of a suitcase, is in the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office and will be used for demonstrations and training, Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree said.

&#8220We will be getting out in the community” and demonstrating the machine at places such as shopping centers and civic club meetings, Ashley-Palmertree said.

The device will also be available in the courthouse for people coming to take care of business or report for jury duty – or just to familiarize themselves with the new process.

Warren County supervisors have decided to buy 153 of the touch-screen machines as part of a federal-state program paying most of the cost. They replace optical scanners used here for all voting since they replaced lever machines about 17 years ago.

Delivery of all the machines is expected by around Feb. 14, District 4 election commissioner John Rundell said.

Some of those machines will also be used for demonstrations, Ashley-Palmertree said.

&#8220Anybody who knows of a place for a demo can call me, and we’ll try to set it up,” said Ashley-Palmertree.

Each machine costs between about $3,000 and $3,200.

Federal funds distributed to the state government have been or will be used to purchase 91 of the machines with the remaining 62 to be purchased with county funds, at least initially, Smith said. Those machines would cost $186,000 to $198,400.

A proposal by Secretary of State Eric Clark to borrow up to $6 million to help counties pay for machines where the cost is not covered by federal funds passed the Mississippi House of Representatives last week and has been referred to a Senate committee. The amount of money each county can receive under the plan is based on voter turnout. Warren County would get about $103,000, said David Blount, spokesman for the Secretary of State.

The bill calls for the debt to be repaid from state fees that are rebated to counties. The rebate is set to expire in October 2007 so no increase in the fee would be necessary to those who pay it, filers of documents under the legal Uniform Commercial Code. The current year’s rebate amount to Warren County was not available.

The voting machines are to be used for the first time June 6 in party primary elections for members of Congress.

Each type of machine retains three copies of vote tallies, Ashley-Palmertree said. The optical scanners retain paper ballots marked by voters and one copy each of records on a small paper roll and a computer-memory card.

With the touch-screen machines, no paper ballots exist to retain but records of votes are printed on two paper-roll copies, including one that is visible to the voter, and are retained digitally on a computer-memory card, Ashley-Palmertree added.