11/5 Camera: County seeks funds for voting centers, ballot-counting scanner

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/election/article/0,1713,BDC_16316_4214733,00.html
Money equals efficiency?
County seeks funds for voting centers, ballot-counting scanner
By Aimee Heckel and Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writers
Daily Camera
November 5, 2005

Here's how voting will look next year if the Boulder County Board of 
Commissioners approves a $5.6 million budget request from election 
officials:

A voter will drop in at one of 50 or 60 "voting centers" scattered 
across the county. Voting centers won't be like precincts: You won't 
have to try to figure out which church or school cafeteria is the one 
closest to home. Instead, residents will be able to use any voting 
center.

"If you live in Longmont and work in Boulder, you could go on your 
lunch break in Boulder and cast your ballot," said Josh Liss, the 
county's elections coordinator.

At the center, the voter would fill out a paper ballot and feed it 
into a new optical scanner. The scanner would alert the voter to any 
mismarkings on the ballot. Once the voter approved the ballot, it 
would be instantly counted.

Votes would be tallied countywide all day long, preventing the 7 p.m. 
bottleneck that sometimes delays election results, Liss said.

"It makes the tallying of votes much faster," he said.

Ballots would be counted by a new $3.6 million optical scan system, 
which the county would buy along with booths accessible to disabled 
voters as required by federal law.

Officials hope these improvements will make the kinds of problems 
that marred the 2004 election a thing of the past. The new Hart 
InterCivic voting system the county bought last year ran into huge 
glitches, delaying election results for several days.

Things went much more smoothly this year, although folded ballots 
still delayed results until 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Liss said the kind of system he has in mind would help reassure 
voters leery from a long string of election fiascoes.

"We want to re-instill voter confidence," he said. "It's taken 
somewhat of a hit since 2000. We're trying to build a robust election 
system that re-instills that confidence."

The $1.4 million Hart InterCivic system won't be retired, Liss said, 
but it would only be used to tally a much smaller number of absentee 
ballots.

Election officials in other counties that have adopted voting centers 
said they've been a great success. Larimer County has been using 
voting centers since 2003. Following its success, Weld, Adams and 
Otero counties added centers this year.

Steve Moreno, Weld County clerk and recorder, said the centers 
improved efficiency and turnout in this week's election.

Weld County's turnout surged from 28 percent in 2001 to 46 percent 
this year. That's partly because of several hot-button ballot issues, 
Moreno said, but he also attributed the increase to the convenience 
of being able to vote in any Weld County city.

"We had voters from Pierce voting in Fort Lupton, from Windsor voting 
in Greeley," Moreno said. "We heard feedback that they really 
appreciated the fact that they ... didn't have to rush back to their 
city or town to vote if they were working."

The biggest problem: Moreno said it's hard to predict where people 
will turn out with vote centers, often leading to lines. Some Weld 
County voters waited in line 35 minutes, compared to five or 10 
minutes in the past.

But Weld County's final unofficial results were available at 10:34 
p.m. Tuesday, 61/2 hours earlier than Boulder's. Moreno said he 
didn't want to compare counties, adding that "Every election, it 
doesn't matter what kind, there's always a way to improve on it."

But Moreno said the on-site ballot-counting boxes helped with Weld 
County's quick results. Weld has been using the same tabulation 
machines at the polling places for 10 years, he said.

Moreno said several Weld County voters asked him about Boulder 
County's slow count last year.

"It can happen to any county," he said. "There are things that can 
happen. There are humans involved. Machines fail."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Aimee Heckel at (303) 473-1359 or 
heckela@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/election/article/0,1713,BDC_16316_4214660,00.html
Money Flow
Daily Camera
November 5, 2005

The county wants $5.6 million for election improvements. Here's where 
the money would go:

$3.6 million: Handicap-accessible voting machines and optical 
scanning system to record votes at the precinct level.*

$1.5 million: Regular election operating budget.

$560,000: Lease costs for a storage and training facility.

$136,000: Improved training software.

$130,000: Four new staff positions.

To be determined: Voting centers at which all Boulder County 
residents could vote, regardless of precinct. Officials expect 
associated computers would cost $320,000, but voting centers would 
save the county $96,000 a year in fewer judges.

$11,250: More laser printers to print ballots.

$1,795: Scanner maintenance contract.

*The state is expected to reimburse the county $643,200, part of the 
cost of the federally mandated accessible machines. Commissioners say 
they already have set aside some of the money for this purchase.