JEFFERSON, Iowa (AP) - When Iowa voters go to the polls for Tuesday's primary, they will cast their ballots on updated voting machines, including a touch-screen model that features big print and an audio version of the ballot for the disabled.

It's the first statewide test of the machines mandated by the Help American Vote Act. Congress approved the legislation in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election, highlighted by the hanging chad fiasco in Florida.

"We can thank the great state of Florida for this business," said Wilbur Eason, a poll worker in Greene County.

Eason, 77, of Scranton, joined dozens of other poll workers at the Greene County fairgrounds in Jefferson, where they were trained to operate the machines.

"We're awful glad to have it this way so we can get used to it," Eason said.

Another poll worker, Cleo Duff, 78, also of Scranton, said she felt good about the training.

"That went really slick, I think," she said.

HAVA mandates that states provide voters with machines that are accessible to the disabled and have lower rates of error. HAVA funneled $31.3 million to Iowa, with $18.3 being spent on voting machines.

Another $6.5 million went to develop a new statewide voter registration system and $3.3 million for training and education. The rest went toward other items, including making polling places handicapped accessible.

All of Iowa's 99 counties have updated their voting machines.

Woodbury County, one of the first counties to start training its poll workers for the primary election, is using an updated version of a precinct optical scanner as well as a voter assist terminal for the disabled.

"It has a touch-screen, but you place a ballot in it and it actually marks the ballots for those folks," county Auditor Patrick Gill said.

Deputy Secretary of State Charles Krogmeier said Iowa's new voter registration system also is in place.

"All 99 counties are connected to our computer here to run one file, one data base, operated from 99 locations. We've been online since January," he said.

As for the voting machines, Krogmeier said the state settled on two businesses - Election Systems & Software, headquartered in Omaha, Neb., and Diebold Election Systems, a subsidiary of Diebold Inc. of Canton, Ohio.

Counties then could choose which machines to use. Both offer versions of a Precinct Count Optical Scan, which uses a paper ballot, and the Direct Record Electronic machine, which uses a touch-screen. ES&S also offers a ballot marking device, which uses touch-screen capability to mark a paper ballot.

Most counties opted for a combination of machines. Eighteen counties went all DRE.

The touch-screen is similar to an ATM.

"Anyone can vote on it," said John Greenwood of Matt Parrott and Sons Co., a distributor for Diebold who conducted the training in Jefferson. "It has the ability to help various people with various disabilities vote unassisted."

He said touch-screens offers three choices. One is bigger print. One activates the keypad and headphones but leaves the ballot up so you can touch it. The third one blanks the screen entirely for the blind so people walking by can't see it.

Greene County, which has seven precincts, opted for a combination of the optical scan and DRE.

"I think we'll have to wait and see how it goes," county Auditor Jane Huen said. "I've talked to other counties that have had touch-screens solely for years, and their people love them."

Greene County had used a central vote counting machine since 1991.

Ballots were taken from the precincts to the courthouse, where they were fed into a machine and counted.

The machine broke in 2004, stalling the count for president and every other race.

With the new machines, the ballots are counted at the precincts and the results are called in to the auditor's office or the disk is taken to the courthouse, where it is put in a computer and the results counted.

Huen said since her county is so small, officials decided to take the disk to the courthouse.

"We didn't want to throw too much at the poll workers," she said.

Huen said Greene County is ready for the primary.

"We're learning as we go. I think it's going to be OK."

On the Net:

Iowa Secretary of State Office: http://www.sos.state.ia.us/

Election Systems & Software: http//www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

Diebold Election Systems http://www.diebold.com