Cape's fire sales tax decided today

Cape Girardeau city voters will use paper ballots and optical scan vote counting machines to decide the fate of a proposed quarter-cent fire sales tax today. Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

Voters will mark in the oval beside the word "yes" or the oval beside the word "no." Voters then will slide their ballots into a slot in a rectangular, computerized device that will record the votes and drop the ballots into a large, plastic ballot box on which the device sits.

If a voter fills in both ovals, the machine will kick out the ballot so the voter can cast a proper ballot, election officials said.

When the polls close, the voting machines -- one for each of 14 Cape Girardeau city precincts -- will be returned to the election office in the Cape Girardeau County Administration Building in Jackson, where small computer cards the size of credit cards will be removed, the cards will then put through a computer that will read the votes cast.