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Statewide standards issued for
Electronic
Pollbooks in county elections
COLUMBUS –
Ohio Secretary of State Jon
Husted today established uniform standards for the use of electronic
pollbooks
(e-pollbooks) for all 88 county boards of elections. Advisory
2013-04 clearly defines system
requirements and
functionalities, as well as procedures for county boards of elections
to follow
when acquiring e-pollbook technology.
“E-pollbooks
will further modernize Ohio’s
elections system, providing a benefit to both elections officials and
voters
alike by streamlining the process,” Secretary Husted said. “As more
counties
choose to take advantage of this technology we must have clear and
consistent
guidelines in place in order to maintain the high level of security and
accuracy Ohio voters expect.”
For
several years, Ohio lawmakers have been
looking at options for statewide standards for e-pollbooks. While
Secretary
Husted is supportive of these efforts and hopeful that eventually the
legislature will be able to pass a law, he is establishing rules now so
that
county boards of elections have guidance as more of them are investing
in this
new technology.
E-pollbooks
eliminate the need for poll workers
to flip through bulky printed pollbooks to locate a voter. Instead,
when a
voter arrives at a polling location to cast a ballot, e-pollbooks allow
elections officials to quickly and easily pull up the voter’s
information by
either entering their name or by simply scanning an identification
card, like a
driver’s license.
Counties
already using e-pollbooks have
reported a decrease in the amount of time it takes for a voter to check
in at a
polling location. For example, elections officials in Montgomery County
have
indicated that prior to using e-pollbooks, the average check-in time
for voters
was 2-3 minutes. Using e-pollbooks, the county was able to cut the wait
time by
80 percent to an average of 30 seconds during the 2012 Presidential
Election.
Currently,
12 counties are using e-pollbooks.
Those counties include: Athens, Butler, Carroll, Hancock, Henry,
Highland,
Licking, Mercer, Montgomery, Richland, Stark and Washington.
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