New voting machines have all-paper ballots

Muhlenberg County election officials attended a demonstration of new voting equipment on May 26, during their monthly board meeting. The new equipment will replace outdated machines across all county voting precincts.

Manufactured in the United States, the equipment was purchased by the county for just over $300,000 using grants to fund the entire amount, county clerk Crystal Smith said.

The new machines are used in 97 counties in Kentucky, and are used to scan paper ballots. The county purchased 31 ballot scanning machines, and 14 ballot marking machines which meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

Smith said the new machines are updated models of the machines that have been used for more than a decade. “With some of the new legislation that has recently passed, the need for this equipment is even greater,” she said.

One new feature allows people with disabilities to cast a paper ballot, instead of voting directly from the ADA machine. The new ADA machines are ballot marking devices, which print out a ballot which is then scanned like all other ballots. This makes the voting process the same for all voters, and completely paper-based.

Each voter will have more options to make sure their intentions are correct with the new machines, which provide alerts for incorrectly marked ballots. When the ballot is scanned, it will allow voters to make changes if they have voted for too many candidates in a single race, missed a second side of the ballot, or marked too lightly when casting their vote.

Jeremy Harmon, representative from Harp Enterprises, fed a ballot into the scanning machine. It was then kicked out because he had marked too many candidates for a single race, called over-voting. He demonstrated the error message, which will tell the voter they have made an error on their ballot.

“This is the importance of second chance voting,” Harmon said. “So now this voter can look up here, and it’s going to tell them the instructions.” The voter can correct that ballot, request it to be spoiled, or accept the over-voting and submit it as is.

When voting a straight party ticket, if a voter checks that option but then votes for a candidate outside the party options, the scanner will automatically give all votes to the selected party, except for the individually marked candidates.

The machines have a locking system with three keys, where 4,500 ballots can be stored in each unit. Battery backup allows for up to two and a half hours of operation in the case of a power failure, and the machines are run offline, and do not connect to the internet or any networks.