A new machine that voters will use to cast their ballots in the territory’s next election will not only save the V.I. Board of Elections money on paper costs, but it will also reduce the chance of voting errors, said Willie Wesley Jr. of Omaha-based company Election Systems and Software. “It’s going to actually put the Virgin Islands on the cutting edge of technology,” Wesley said. “If there’s something out there more advanced than this, I want to see it.” Wesley, who has been working with Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes to overhaul the territory’s voting technology, gave a demonstration of the new machine at Tutu Park Mall on Thursday evening. The machine is called ExpressVote and is a touchscreen computer system that voters insert a blank ballot into before making selections. The ExpressVote then prints barcodes on the ballot that can be read by an electronic tabulator.
The territory will continue to use the DS200 tabulators used in the 2014 election, which are also made by Elections Systems and Software.
One advantage of the ExpressVote is that it uses blank paper ballots. The Board of Elections will no longer spend money printing large color-ink ballots, which Wesley said can cost 75 cents per sheet. The unused ballots can also be used in future elections, since they are unmarked, rather than being shredded.
“ExpressVote is a very, very simple machine to use,” said Wesley as he navigated the system’s menus.
Full Article: Elections: New Machines Will Reduce Errors, Save Money | St. Croix Source.