Election officials in Stutsman County will have some new equipment and procedures when voters go to the polls this year, according to Nicole Melland, Stutsman County auditor and chief operating officer.
"The state is covering the cost," she said, referring to the new tabulating machines and the computerized poll books the county will utilizes for elections. "The new machines will be more reliable and offer some new features."
One of the new features added to the ballot tabulating machines is a scanning capacity, according to Brian Nybakken, election system manager for the North Dakota Secretary of State office. This feature creates a computer image of each ballot as it is being counted.
"We can pull up an image of the ballot if it is reviewed for a write-in or in the event of a recount and we need to determine voter intent," Nybakken said.
The computerized poll book has also been improved. Previously, most counties only listed people who had voted in the last two election cycles, which is a primary and general election held in even-numbered years.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nybakken said the new poll book system will list those people as active voters but also have a database of inactive voters drawn from driver's licenses and other records. For example, someone who has just turned 18 and never voted before but has a driver's license could show the license and be quickly moved to the active voter list without filling out additional information
Also, the new poll books work from a statewide database of active voters. If someone attempts to vote twice, even in different counties, the system will alert the election workers, Nybakken said.
The new equipment should reduce the time it takes voters to check in and cast their ballot, said Brian Newby, state election director for the North Dakota Secretary of State office.
"We want to do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for those that want to vote, to vote," he said.
With that same intent, Stutsman County is making some procedural changes to make it easier to cast a ballot, Melland said.
"We're offering an option similar to vote-by-mail," she said.
The county will send an absentee ballot application to every person listed in the state's database prior to each election.
Melland said that while Stutsman County will not operate the rural voting precincts it has in previous elections, it will offer voters three opportunities to cast their ballot.
ADVERTISEMENT
"They can fill out the application and get an absentee ballot, they can vote at the early voting precinct at the courthouse in the two weeks before the election or they can vote at the central voting precinct at the Jamestown Civic Center on Election Day," she said.
Melland said the new equipment is also very secure from hackers. The ballot scanners are not connected to the internet or any computer network. Results are physically moved from the machines to a central computer used to total the votes on flash drives. The vote totals generated by the central computer are transferred by another flash drive to network computers that transmit the results to the secretary of state office for inclusion in statewide totals.
Nybakken said the state of North Dakota invested about $8.1 million in the new equipment which has been used in other states and is not prone to problems. The equipment it replaces was about 15 years old and some counties, including Stutsman, reported equipment problems during the last election.
"We're prepared for the elections," Newby said. "We wouldn't be rolling it (new election equipment) out in a presidential year if we had concerns."
