County voters to use new equipment Tuesday
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
Over the summer, the Walworth County Clerk’s Office received a shipment of 35 new pieces of voting equipment and related technology. Dominion Imagecast Evolution or ICE machines that uses optical scanner technology to read marked paper ballots and tally the results of the upcoming Aug. 14 partisan primary will be used countywide.
In 2018, Walworth County Board of Supervisors authorized the purchase of the new countywide system to replace the existing 17-year-old technology and to ensure a consistent voting experience throughout the county.
Most voters will see little change in the voting process with the new machines. They will continue to use a pen to fill in an oval next to the name of the candidate they choose and then slide their completed ballot into the new optical scan machine.
“The new machines are black instead of white, but the biggest thing voters will find different is that it’s a little slower,” Village of East Troy Deputy Clerk Lorri Alexander said Monday.
“The ballot is long this time because it’s a partisan primary and it’s 19-inches long and double sided,” Alexander continued. “The new machine takes a scan of the ballot and records that and then casts the vote.”
Alexander said voters will hear a “ding” when their ballot has been recorded and they will see the total vote count on the machine change.
“We really want them to wait for that ‘ding,’” Alexander said. “The machine can recognize things like crossover voting, over voting, blank ballots or ambiguous markings, it looks for that, and if there is a problem it can be fixed right there.
“Some times, with partisan primaries, we have people who may not understand they can only vote within one party and this gives them a chance to change things if they voted incorrectly.”
If there are errors, such as selecting two candidates in one race or making an unrecognizable mark on the ballot, a message explaining the error will appear on the machine’s screen, giving the voter a chance to fix it. By comparison, the old machines displayed an error message on a tiny LCD screen.
“The typical voter experience will be relatively unchanged,” Walworth County Clerk Kim Bushey stated in a press release about the new voting equipment. “If voters make an error casting a ballot, they will now get a more descriptive message making it easier for them to resolve it without poll worker assistance, giving them more privacy.”
Alexander said ballot security was something people have been expressing concern about and she wanted people to know the new machines are not connected to the internet.
“That’s another nice thing, as every one is worried about that,” she said. “The ballots are counted after the polls closed and at the end of the night, once the results are done, they are transmitted by cellular modem. The machines are not hooked up to the internet.”
Alexander said the new machines are not touchscreens, but were handicapped accessible.
“The whole process is the same, nothing else has changed,” she added.
In the press release, Bushey commended the Walworth County Board for their decision to purchase the system on a countywide basis and stressed the importance of having the entire County on one system.
She said that more than 80 municipal clerks, deputy clerks and chief inspectors were trained on the use of the new equipment. The training culminated in a mock election to test the equipment on site at each of the polling locations.
Bushey also had words of praise for the municipal clerks.
“The town, village and city clerks were supportive in this process and it was their progressive attitude which enabled this process to occur,” she said.
Alexander said having everyone in the area using the same equipment was helping local municipalities.
“We can all support and back each other up now,” she said. “Along with the county, which has backup equipment, we can help out if something goes wrong.”
