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The feel of the new system won’t be a radical departure for county voters familiar with casting absentee ballots or voting in person on Election Day, Jan Kelly, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, told commissioners at a meeting Tuesday.
“The voter will have a choice between a paper ballot they can mark with a pencil like they have been with absentee ballots they get at home, or they can use a touchscreen like they are used to if they go to polling locations,” she said.
Voters in the county currently cast ballots on direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines that use touchscreens and produce a paper record — but not a paper ballot. The current machines — first used in 2005 — like many other systems across the state have fallen into disrepair and obsolescence.
Aging equipment was blamed for causing printing errors and slowing recounts of several Montgomery County races following the past Nov. 6 election.
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Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation making a total of $104.5 million in funding available to counties to purchase new voting equipment before the 2020 presidential election.
The state will pick up $4.75 million of Montgomery County’s planned $8.2 million tab, said Steve Harsman, Montgomery County Board of Elections deputy director.
Harsman said the Board of Elections set money aside anticipating the need for new machines and will not have to ask commissioners for additional funds.
“We are fully budgeted for this system,” he said. “Not only for the voting system itself, but for all the peripherals.”
Each of Montgomery County’s 177 precincts will get four touchscreen voting machines and two optical digital scanners that voters directly feed ballots into. The ExpressTouch machines are $2,800 a piece while the scanners cost $4,600 each.
Prices were negotiated by the state with vendors so counties all pay the same for similar equipment, Harsman said.
Kelly told commissioners during a meeting Tuesday that the ES&S system was a “Rolex product at a Timex price.”
Some all-paper systems would have been less expensive, Kelly said, but the preference county voters have for touchscreens and the county’s track record with ES&S products and service factored heavily in the recommendation.
“There was always a cheaper solution, but cheaper is not always better,” she said. “This was the best solution of the top vendors, and they were the least expensive of the top vendors we looked at. We felt that this was the best decision we could make for voters and the county in the long run.”
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While the cost up front is higher, Harsman said the system could save up to $1 million in future years through reduced paper costs because only ballot stock is required, not a full preprinted ballot for every registered voter plus another one percent as required by law for predominately hand-marked ballot systems. There are about 380,00o registered voters in the county.
County commissioners are expected to approve the new system at a Feb. 19 meeting.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any debate … we like it,” said Montgomery County Commission President Debbie Lieberman.
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