New voting machines in place for May Primary Election

When voters go to the polls on May 17 in Whitley County, they will be voting on entirely new machines.

Whitley County Clerk Carolyn Willis said that voters shouldn’t have any problems using the new machines as they are very similar to what the voters have been using the last several years.

“I am excited about them. They are very, very user friendly,” she added. “There is no need to be intimidated. I don’t think it will be a problem for any of our voters.”

The new voting equipment utilizes paper ballots that voters will fill out, and then feed into a machine to be scanned and stored.

Willis said this creates a paper trail in the event issues arise stemming from the election and ballots have to be recounted.

Willis said that starting this week there will be a demonstration voting machine set up in her office in Williamsburg, which voters can try out.

“If they want to demonstrate a vote on it, they are welcome to do so. We want people to know that this new voting equipment is a step forward for our county. I am thinking everyone is going to love it,” she added.

“I urge anyone that would like to check them out to come right on in. We would be glad to show you and let you vote on it and let you be familiar with it.”

How voting will work

Voters should bring their driver’s license or official state identification card with them to the polls even if precinct workers know who they are as scanning those identification cards speeds up the registration process at the polls and cuts down on the time standing in line.

“Once you scan your driver’s license or photo identification, it is going to tell us exactly where you live and what ballot that you get,” Willis said adding this should reduce the chance of voters getting the wrong ballot.

Previously, there have been cases where a single voting precinct has had as many as six different voting ballots that voters would utilize depending on where they lived in the precinct.

For instance, a voter might live in the Williamsburg city limits where there is a city council race on the ballot, but not live in the Williamsburg school district, which also may have an election for board members. Voters could also live in the Williamsburg school district, but not live in the Williamsburg city limits.

In some cases, someone living on one side of the road may not be able to vote in a race that their neighbor right across the street can vote in, Willis said.

Reduce costs

One advantage of the new system is that the election ballots will be printed onsite after a voter signs in at the polls. Each ballot takes about seven seconds to print.

“Basically, your ballot is going to be printed by the time you sign your e-Poll book,” she said.

In the past, Willis said that her office has had to estimate how many of each ballot they would need at each voting precinct and the office always tried to error on the side of not running out of ballots.

“I feel like that will really save money. When you order your ballots you have to order so many. You are really in a guessing game,” she said.

Willis added that any ballot paper not used this election can simply be saved for the next election.

As a precaution, Willis is ordering 50 copies of each ballot pre-printed just in case of an Election Day problem.