Facing a busy election year, Ada County said a year ago that it would ditch its antiquated voting equipment and get a new voting system in place for the 2016 presidential election. The county has been using outdated, hard-to-find Zip disks and Zip drives, dot-matrix printers and temperamental counting machines to tally and track vote tabulation. “The risks were becoming exceedingly high for a failure on election night,” said Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane. For the March 8 Republican presidential primary, Ada County will debut a state-of-art replacement, the first equipment of its kind to be used in Idaho. Voters will not notice much difference when they vote. They still will receive a paper ballot and use a pen or pencil to fill in a box indicating their selection. The biggest change will be how and where the county counts ballots. Ada County has been using a central counting system. When Election Day polls closed at 8 p.m., workers from nearly 140 polling places scurried to deliver ballots to the central election office for counting. Most ballots arrived about the same time, but then sat and waited to be fed into counting machines.
… The county paid a lot less for the system than it expected. In 2012, the county estimated it would cost $3.4 million. “I am thrilled to say we got the new system for $1.6 million,” McGrane said. Several vendors expressed an interest in supplying the county’s new voting system, which made for competitive bids, he said. The new system, called Verity Voting, is manufactured by Hart InterCivic. The county is paying $900,000 of the tab. Federal money will cover $700,000.
… Each polling place in Ada County also will have a new Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant voting device that includes accessibility features such as tactile buttons, audio ballots and compatibility with common adaptive devices.
“Verity’s accessible ballot marking device has been very well received by Idahoans who need assistance due to visual, learning or mobility challenges,” said Scott Hoover, of Disability Rights Idaho, in a news release.
Full Article: Ada County voters may see faster results with new election system | Idaho Statesman.