The 2000 presidential election and the entire debacle that took place in Florida, where it appeared that many votes were cast incorrectly due to antiquated butterfly style punch ballots caused a national outcry for change in the way that we vote.

It has taken the federal government several years to make up their minds on exactly how to ensure accurate voting and the privacy of the ballot box, but it appears that they have finally made up their mind.

Counties like Plymouth County that wanted to be ahead of the curve and make the move to electronic voting, which at one time was the panacea of choice for voting reform, went ahead and purchased new touch screen voting machines. The new machines were quite a change from the old lever style curtained machines of old, and worked fine.

After voting irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election, where results from electronic machines were questioned, a hybrid form needed to be adopted. A "paper trail" needed to be made, with ballots that could be counted by hand, but results also needed to be made available quickly.

Enter the optical scanning voting machine, and bid farewell to complete electronic voting. The new voting machines purchased by the county would be rendered obsolete. But who would foot the bill?

That question was answered this week when the Board of Supervisors signed an agreement with the State of Iowa for the state to pay the entire $148,522 cost for the new optical scan voting machines.

It gets better.

K. Kae Meyer, Plymouth County auditor, said she thinks state will also pay for returning the county's 57 touch-screen voting machines and bringing the new ones.

That is good news for county taxpayers, who should not have been penalized for the foresight of the county, trying to hit a moving target that is the whim of the federal government.

We realize that, in the end, we will be paying for the machines indirectly through our state and federal taxes. But we hope that the amount paid in taxes is less than the $148,522 cost of the new 28 machines.

A happy ending is a nice change of pace.