Ventura County residents will use a new electronic voting system when the June primary election rolls around.

Instead of a paper punch card, voters will now use a black or blue ballpoint pen to mark a paper ballot which features arrows that point to the candidate or proposition they're selecting.

Voters then feed the completed ballot into an electronic reader about the size of a street corner mailbox.

Although the county could have chosen an entirely electronic system, officials wanted to keep a paper trail in the event of a potential recount, said Mischa Sammons, a voter outreach assistant.

"We just felt people really liked to have that (paper) ballot," Sammons said. "And it wouldn't be a big change from the punch card."

With the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the federal government required updated voting systems. Some counties went to an electronic voting system, eliminating the need for paper.

The system also can immediately notify voters that they've "over voted," or made more selections than they should. An alarm sounds and the ballot is rejected if the machine detects a case of over voting. The voter can then discard the ballot and has two more chances to vote correctly.

With the old method, over votes couldn't be fixed, and the vote in that particular contest wasn't counted.

The machine doesn't detect under votes, or when a voter doesn't mark enough entries, however. And once the machine accepts the ballot, it's irretrievable.

Visually-impaired people can use a computerized touch screen to vote. After making their selections, they can print their ballot out to review it for accuracy and make changes on the computer before casting their vote.

The procedure for absentee votes remains the same: using the new ballot, the person makes their choice and mails it into the county's election division.

As it was with the old system, the electronic system doesn't disclose any personal identification information about the voter.

"We don't want to be able to connect a person to how they voted or else it wouldn't be a secret ballot," Sammons said.