Bollinger County buys new vote-counting equipment

MARBLE HILL, Mo. — For the first time, voters in Bollinger County will be able to cast their ballots in the March 15 presidential primary election on the county’s new voting equipment.

The new equipment will keep a running total of the votes cast throughout an election and will make final tabulations at the courthouse faster and more accurate, Bollinger County Clerk Brittany Hovis said.

The past several elections have seen the counting delayed because of malfunctions with equipment. Replacing old equipment was too expensive until recently. Hovis said she changed the company that printed the ballot, which saved $23,500, and eliminated five polling places, which saved the county another $33,600 a year.

Hovis received a grant of $9,511 to apply toward the cost of new equipment. With some discounts, the total cost of the equipment came to $44,169, which will be paid off over five years at $8,833 a year, she said. The equipment is expected to last at least 15 years.

Bollinger County has joined 55 other counties in Missouri that will make voting more efficient.

After voters mark their ballots, they will place them in the counter, which automatically tabulates results and stores them on a memory card. If a voter makes an error, the counter immediately will catch the error, and an election judge will be there to retrieve the incorrect ballot and offer the voter a new ballot.

After the polls close, poll workers will bring the counters to the courthouse, where Hovis will be waiting with a key that will release the memory card and allow her to enter results into the system for final tabulations.

“By the time the last precinct gets here, we should have the results very quick,” she said.

Each precinct will have a counter and an additional counter designed to accommodate handicapped voters, which any voter may use.

Hovis said the equipment also is set up to screen and automatically count write-in votes. It also scans in the written vote as a record to verify the votes.

“Once our voters use the machine and see how easy and efficient it is, they will see why we needed to take this step forward,” Hovis said.

Closing five polling places in the county contributed to the savings that allowed the county to update its election equipment. The savings resulted from paying fewer election judges. With the new counter, only two people — one Republican and one Democrat — will be needed to help with the count, instead of six.

The polls to be closed are Little Whitewater Church, Hideaway Café, Glenallen, Marble Hill City Hall and Benny Bollinger’s Garage.

Within the next few weeks, each registered voter in Bollinger County will receive a new voter registration card and a note from Hovis telling them where they need to go vote.