Another step toward same-day voter registration — which allows previously unregistered voters to walk into a polling place and cast ballots on the date of an election — was taken Tuesday when the Lake County Board approved $920,000 worth of contracts with tech firms to provide equipment necessary for the state-mandated initiative. Lake County Clerk Carla Wyckoff told the board that the purchases will, in part, create “an electronic poll-book system that we will use both on election day and also for early voting to enable us to have on-site registration and voting in every one of those voting sites, including on election day.” For example, Wyckoff said, a $147,685 contract with Omaha-based Election Systems and Software will include touch-screen voting machines at “any one of our 14 early-voting sites, (so) we will have to have the capacity to produce every single ballot style in the event that anyone would show up there to vote.”
… The contracts approved by the board on Tuesday include a $772,045 deal with Wheaton-based Robis Inc. to provide electronic poll book tablets, software, hosting, printers, staff training and professional services. Wyckoff said the equipment and training will set up same-day registration and voting, but only at an individual’s designated site.
“The distinction between early voting and election-day voting this next year,” she said, “is that on election day, individuals will still need to go to their own polling place, although there will be election-day registration and voting in every polling place.”
Full Article: Lake County spends $920K for same-day registration, voting technology – Lake County News-Sun.