![]() If you see the blinking lights of an access point in your polling place, that’s what it’s for. Most commonly, this is done using Wi-Fi communication from the pollbook to an access point within the polling place and then cellular data communication from the access point to a county server. That too would scale up poorly without the use of electronic pollbooks.įor this reason, the Legislature expressly allowed electronic pollbooks to be networked beyond the polling place for purposes of updating absentee ballot records. Also, once polling-place voting is underway, no newly accepted absentee ballot can be opened until the pollbook is checked to see whether the voter voted in person. With paper pollbooks, if lots of absentee ballots arrive after the rosters are printed, marking them into the pollbooks manually is a huge job. All accepted absentee ballots need to be noted in the pollbook so that the voter doesn’t vote again at the polling place. One feature that became particularly important in 2020 is that they ease the coordination of polling-place and absentee voting. Įlectronic pollbooks can improve efficiency and reduce errors. Although Minnesota law provides each county the flexibility to select its own vendor, all the counties have made the same choice, KNOWiNK’s Poll Pad. Because all the most populous counties are in the electronic pollbook camp, most voters experience this technology. ![]() Two-thirds of Minnesota’s counties use electronic pollbooks, with the remainder using traditional paper pollbooks. An optical-scan tabulator checks the ballot’s markings before depositing it in a ballot box.Įach of these systems has its own story for why it is important, what precautions are taken to ensure its reliability, and how - if at all - it can be networked with other systems.A ballot marking device provides an alternative for voters who prefer not to mark their ballots with a pen - perhaps based on their abilities.Pollbooks aid in voter check-in and election-day registration.Many Minnesota polling places have three kinds of computerized equipment. And the touch points one sees upon entering the space are the election equipment - computerized equipment, in a modern polling place. The foundational structure is built of paper: The signed voter certificates and marked ballots that provide a stable record. The voters and election judges are the heart and soul. Read part 1, “Who does what?” And part 2, “ Who can vote in Minnesota?”Īrchitects consider the people who will use a space, the structural elements that will give that space stability, and the surfaces that people will see and interact with, down to the handle on the front door.Ī polling place has the same elements. Detroit's election staffers are working hard to get the volunteer supervisors trained, tested and approved on the equipment, he said.This is part of an occasional series on election administration. Detroit is among seven communities in Wayne County to get the new machines in time for the August primary election, Baxter said. State funding will cover the remaining estimated cost, Baxter said, which is about $2.3 million. Recount mess: What if Michigan had held the key to election?ĭetroit has ordered nearly 700 of the new machines, which will cost the city between $400,000 and $600,000, Detroit Elections Director Daniel Baxter said. Livingston to get $710K in state, federal money for voting machines "At the end of the day, we all have one goal, right? To ensure that every person that wants to vote gets to vote and we count that vote accurately," Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told the poll workers. In an event billed as an equipment fair, Winfrey and her staff showed off the new, $4,000 voting tabulators to noisy, curious crowds of election volunteers who gathered - one group in the morning, another in the afternoon - at Wayne County Community College in downtown Detroit.
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