Electronic poll books will debut on Tuesday

STEUBENVILLE -- The Jefferson County Board of Elections will be debuting electronic poll books in Tuesday's primary election.

Diane Gribble, board of elections director, said the electronic poll books will replace the books poll workers used in the process of checking in voters when they arrive at the polls.

Voters will no longer have to look for the check-in table at their precinct, especially with polling places having more than one precinct, Gribble said.

Voters now will see a table with the electronic poll books. They will swipe their driver's license or state identification card to verify they are registered to vote, Gribble said, adding a poll worker will type in a person's name if he or she doesn't have a driver's license or identification card. And each voter will sign the electronic poll book instead of the paper poll book.

The electronic poll books will allow the line of voters to move quicker to the actual polls to cast a ballot, Gribble said.

"There is no waiting in line. If there is 10 people waiting to check in at a precinct, then a precinct less busy will be able to take the overflow," Gribble said.

The poll worker will be able to encode the correct ballot and place the access card in a voting machine. The access card will pull up the correct ballot for each voter, allowing the voter to use any of the open machines at the polling location with more than one precinct, Gribble said.

"In a large election, it will be relatively quick to check in, go vote and be done," she said.

If a person goes to the wrong voting location, the poll worker will be able to check voting records countywide using the electronic poll book and send the voter to the correct location, Gribble noted. With the paper poll books, the poll workers would have had to call the board of elections office to check on the correct voting location.

Persons who have to vote using a provisional ballot will be sent to another check-in table to complete the application. Gribble said that will save time for other voters because the provisional ballot application was done at the check-in table with the old paper poll books, causing a delay for other voters waiting.

The county was allotted $74,000 by the state to cover nearly one-half of the $151,000 price tag for the electronic poll books. The county commissioners approved funding from the emergency and computer funds, with remaining money coming from the board of elections' budget.

The electronic poll book will guarantee the correct ballot information on the access card, reducing human error in encoding the wrong ballot information, Gribble said. Voters still will have the option of requesting a paper ballot, Gribble said.

In a partisan election, voters will be able to choose on the tablet which party ballot they want. Gribble said some voters didn't like the idea of having to say out loud to the poll worker which partisan ballot they wanted to vote.

The board of elections the day after any election will download the voter information from the electronic poll books into the board's database, which includes the party affiliation of the voter.

"All around, it is good for everybody -- the poll worker and the voter," Gribble said of the electronic poll books.

Poll workers have been trained on using the new electronic poll books, Gribble added.

Only 28 of the county's 71 precincts will be open in Tuesday's primary election.

(Law can be contacted at mlaw@heraldstaronline.com.)