SLO County introduces new technology at the polls to speed up in-person voting
Polling places across San Luis Obispo County will have a new piece of technology on hand to speed up in-person voting on Tuesday.
In the past, pollworkers have relied on paper rosters to check in people, but now they will use a digital tablet known as an electronic pollbook, or e-pollbook, to sign in voters. The new systems not only track voter check-ins, but trace ballot activity and election worker actions.
San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder Elaina Cano said her office has been working for over a year to acquire the electronic pollbooks. In February, SLO County contracted 150 e-pollbooks from Tenex Software Solutions for six years, costing the county a total of $502,450.
The county is one of the last in California to make the transition from paper to e-pollbooks, according to Cano.
“We’re moving toward more technology out at the polls because the laws are requiring us,” she said, noting a new state law that requires a large majority of mail ballots to be processed and counted within 13 days of the election.
In previous years, she said some voters have inadvertently signed on the wrong line in the paper roster. This new electronic system will eliminate that possibility and minimize errors at the polls.
“It’s very easy, it’s going to be great for the voters’ experience (and) for the poll workers’ experience,” Cano told The Tribune.
Now, pollworkers will be able to clock-in on the tablets when they arrive at the voting sites. The e-pollbooks will also provide pollworkers with step-by-step directions on what to do in a variety of different scenarios, such as if the voter is at the wrong polling location or if they didn’t bring their mail-in ballot with them. Previously, volunteers had to troubleshoot by searching through a reference manual.
“It really gives you that confidence that you’re doing the right thing,” Erin Clausen, the public information officer for the Clerk-Recorder’s Office said.
The tablets are not connected to a voting system at any time and do not track or store votes, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
On Election Day, elections office staff will be able to check from afar if e-pollbooks at precincts are low on battery, if voters are having to wait to check in or if a site is running out of ballots.
“The whole back end of it is going to allow us to be more proactive instead of reactive,” Cano told The Tribune. “It’s a really great tool.”
And if the tablets lose connection or run out of battery on Election Day, there will be a few on hand for backup — and if there’s a system-wide issue that causes all e-pollbooks to fail, Cano said every precinct will still print out paper-based indexes and voter rosters.
“I can’t even think of a scenario where it would completely go out,” she added.
Last week, the elections office trained around 600 pollworkers for the primary election. Cano said most were really excited about using the new technology.
“It’s streamlined things and made everything so much easier, and they really have embraced it,” she said.
