The Wayne County Board of Supervisors approved this week, the purchase of  183 electronic polling devices, at a total cost of $445,917 for the Board of Elections, including certified polling software, peripherals and services. 

The Wayne County Board of Elections (BOE) is in the process of replacing hand written poll books with electronic poll books, as New York State Board of Elections is encouraging electronic polling. While  Electronic poll books are now in use in 60 of the 62 New York State counties and offer savings in supplies, poll worker time, accuracy, and most of all post-election reporting the Wayne County BOE requested the funding and received quotes. Now that the equipment is available from Tenex via the New York State Office of General Services (OGS) contract, funding was approved at the latest Board of Supervisor meeting.

For funding, the County transfered  $420,000 from an Equipment Reserve and will use the $25,917 from the Grants.

What are Electronic Poll

Books and what do they

propose to do?

Poll Book has replaced the outdated and inefficient paper model that is often the cause of long lines at the polls and inefficient election record keeping.

With built-in election management and reporting tools; elections can be finalized and submitted within hours of election close. Efficiencies translate into reduced polling place staffing; jurisdictions can realize Election Day staffing reductions up to 50%.  Improved accuracy and reduced preparation time and storage requirements with the elimination of paper logs.

The County will use the Tenex “Precinct Central”, an electronic poll book,  in place of printed paper poll books to check in voters, determine whether they have already received or voted a mail ballot, update voter information, and direct voters in the wrong location to their correct polling place. 

The unit is composed of software running on an Apple iPad, which sits on a proprietary “flip and share” stand that can be tilted back and forth between the poll worker and the voter like a seesaw, with the screen adjusting to face either person right side up. 

The software connects to the Precinct Central Console,  and allows elections staff to remotely monitor touchpads, poll workers, communications, ballot inventory, voter check-ins, and absentee ballots in real time.

Processing Voters

When opening the polling place, poll workers unpack the lightweight  cases, each containing two  units, two printers, a MiFi unit, two styluses, additional printer paper rolls, charging cords, and a cleaning cloth.  Poll workers connect each unit to a power outlet  with the option to use a backup battery pack. The touchpads turn on automatically and can be powered on with the power button if they do not. The poll workers next assemble the Epson TM-m30 bluetooth printers, each of which houses a 250-foot receipt paper roll and can print reports, affidavits, and polling location directions on-demand.

The home screen of the electronic poll book software displays the option to manually search for a voter. From this screen, the poll worker can also spoil and re-issue a ballot, see a log of checked in voters, and reprint authority to vote slips. The  application automatically brings up the voter’s information screen and displays a voter eligibility message noting whether or not the voter is eligible to vote in this election. The poll worker can  look up the voter manually by searching last name and house number, last name and birth year, last name and first name,  or address.  After confirming the voter’s eligibility, the poll worker moves to the voter signature screen and tilts the screen toward the voter  who uses the stylus to sign their name. The voter then flips the screen back toward the poll worker, who inspects the voter’s signature and selects “Issue Ballot” to print an authority to vote slip for the voter. 

When signed in, a paper ballot is custom printed for that voter by their district. 

Some question how poll workers will deal with certain issues.

If there is an internet outage, every poll site is supplied with “emergency paper poll books”. 

 According to Wayne County Deputy Commissioner Mindy Robinson, “With an internet outage, this would also affect the “On-Demand” ballot printers.  With the paper poll books we also supply emergency ballots to every poll site.  These would be “pre-printed” ballots. 

What exactly is an

“On-Demand” ballot printer?  

No more “Pre-Printed” ballots will go to poll sites on election day, with the exception of Emergency Ballots (Pre-Printed). Starting in November, blank ballot paper is sent to poll sites.  That paper will be loaded into the “On-Demand” printers and once the voter signs in, the ballot is then printed.  There is a checks and balances to make sure the voter is issued the correct ballot.  Each poll site will have “receipt printers” too.  “This is like a Wal-Mart receipt that will have the voters name, address, and voting district on it.  The Poll Worker can use this receipt to compare to the printed ballot.,” explained Robinson.

“These on-demand ballot printers will be a big savings for this department. In all elections, boards have to “gauge” what the voter turnout will be for an upcoming election. This task isn’t easy. ou can obviously refer back to past elections as a comparative tool, but in my experience, boards always over order.  The amount of money and paper wasted by ordering too many paper  printed ballots, will not be the case anymore, as pre-printed ballots will only be needed for emergency use and our Absentee/Affidavit Ballot”, said Mindy.