LIMA — Allen County is getting closer to obtaining electronic machines to speed up the voting process, with the goal being to have them purchased before the November election.
All 88 Ohio counties will have funding assistance in purchasing paperless e-pollbooks, thanks to $12.7 million in appropriations from the state legislature that will cover up to 85 percent of expenses. According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, 21 counties in Ohio, including Mercer and Hancock counties, have now implemented electronic pollbook technology.
According to Board of Elections director Ken Terry, going with e-pollbooks rather than the traditional paper-based pollbooks method can create a more seamless experience for voters at the polls.
“You don’t have to go to your specific precinct line,” he said. “You can get checked in by having them scan your driver’s license, and it will instantly bring you up.”
Voters will then be able to vote on regular paper ballots, just as they do now.
While voters will still have to go to their assigned polling location on Election Day, they will be treated on a first-come, first-serve basis, rather than having to wait in lines for specific precincts.
“What we’ve seen in bigger elections is you’ll have lines at one precinct and not another,” he said. “With this way, it doesn’t matter.”
Having electronic records will also make things easier for poll workers, according to Terry.
“What would take us a week checking the books will take us a couple of hours,” he said.
Terry wants to have the e-books procured by the November election to give poll workers a chance to work with this new technology before next year’s presidential election.
“We’re not necessarily going to use it as a check-in at each precinct this time,” he said. “In our next election in March, a lot of our poll workers will still be in Florida or Arizona, so we want to give them a chance to see it before 2016.”
Five e-pollbook manufacturers have been approved to supply this technology to each county, and the Allen County Board of Elections is waiting on price quotes from each company before deciding which to use. Terry hopes to have that information within the next two weeks.
