Hill County looks at new ballot-counting equipment

Hill County is looking at buying new voting equipment under a law requiring election officials to provide voting machines allowing access for people with disabilities with the state reimbursing part of the cost.

Thursday a representative of Nebraska-based Election Systems and Software, who declined to give her name, gave a presentation for the Hill and Blaine County officials of the new equipment available for counting ballots during election season.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder and Election Administrator Sue Armstrong said Senate Bill 291 introduced by Sen. Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, that was signed into law Tuesday requires polling stations to have at least one voting station that is accessible to people with disabilities.

The law requires that one of these devices has to be available at every polling station and the devices has to be approved by the Montana secretary of state.

The law is in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The representative of Election Systems and Software said the new paper-based Express Vote Universal Voting Systems are more user friendly than the model the Hill and Blaine counties use currently.

The ExpressVote system uses touch-screen technology that produces a paper record for tabulation. ExpressVote handles the entire marking process, eliminating marginal marks and the need for interpretation of the voter's mark. It also has and audio reader, braille and a control pad which can be used for people with disabilities. The audio reader reads all of the ballot to the voter in a clear voice as well as reads each option as the user scrolls through the options.

The ExpressVote system, which is aimed for the disabled, can be used by anyone who wants to use the machine.

Armstrong said that the state will also reimburse the county 50 percent of the cost of the new equipment.

Hill County would have to purchase nine of the ExpressVote machines to have them at all the polling stations, which would cost approximately $31,713.75 for the machines, the cases and the cardstock. Nine of the ExpressVote machines cost $29,925, which the state would reimburse $14,962.5.

The representative added that the card stock used by the ExpressVote machine is approximately a third of the price of regular ballots. The representative added that the company does different payment plans and financing options for counties.

The Automark counter from the 1980s, the county currently uses, is large, heavy and not user-friendly, Armstrong said.

"It takes two people to lift it," she said.

It is handicap-accessible, but not many people currently use the machine, she added.

The representative said that other countries have seen a 50.1 percent increase in voters using the automated machines since the change. They added that they have heard a lot of positive feedback from both the voters and the elections judges.

The representative also displayed the company's DS450 ballot scanner and tabulator, which is an automated system used to count and record ballots. The machine is programed to sort through the ballots, continuously separating them into different piles determined by the programing.

Armstrong said that with the previous system, the 650, the counter would pause if a write-in ballot was put through the system and it would be sorted separately.

The new system separates the write-in ballots as the ballots are being counted, so once the ballots are run through the system, election officials can count them.

The system also has a extra feature that would allow the machine to scan, analyze read the write-in ballots and automatically count the votes.

The machine can count anywhere from 59 to 93 ballots a minute, a much faster speed than the 650.

Armstrong said that the DS450 counts all the ballots, coming in faster and more effectively.

Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland said that old machine shows age, with the internal rollers not properly grabbing the ballots. He added that it also has problems getting the ballots through.