By Wayne Gates
Early voting is underway in Brown County, and a new touchscreen voting system will greet voters when they show up in person at the Brown County Board of Elections.
The new system cost about $582,000 and was paid for by a grant from the office of the Ohio Secretary of State.
Voters see their ballot come up on a screen in front of them and they will touch the screen to make their selection.
Once their voting is complete, the machine will print a paper ballot for them, which they will deposit into a nearby machine for safekeeping until the votes are counted.
The new system is designed to increase security and accuracy, while decreasing the time taken to tabulate the votes.
The electronic machines are referred to as “unhackable” because they are never connected to the internet and always under the supervision of multiple people.
The new electronic system will prevent overvotes, which are when it appears that a voter has chosen more than one candidate in a particular race on a paper ballot.
When that happened in the past, the counting machine would reject the ballot, which would have to be physically reviewed by the board of elections.
With overvoting prevented by the electronic system, such overvoting reviews will no longer be necessary.
“The tabulation on our end will be much easier with keeping track of overvotes, undervotes and write in’s”, said Brown County BOE Director Connie Ayers.
“When we tabulate, we will have a screen that shows those write-in’s and we will know right away whether they are good or bad. Before, the poll worker would have to sit and take those out for tabulation by hand.”
Early voting is available at the Brown County Board of Elections from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday through October 25, from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. until Nov. 1.
On Saturday Nov. 2, the BOE will be open from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. and from 1p.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3, and from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Monday Nov. 4. Election day is Nov. 5.