Linn County prepares to spend $800,000 for new voting machines

CEDAR RAPIDS - Tim Box says there are two things to know about voting equipment. It needs to keep up with technology. And federal Help America Vote Act funds, used to buy equipment in 2008, is no longer available.

Come 2016, voters in Linn County should be voting with brand-new voting equipment that will cost about $800,000 in county funds.

The new will change little from the old in the voting experience, said Box, Linn County's deputy auditor for elections. With the new equipment, he said, voters who vote at the polls will continue filling in paper ballots and placing them in scanners for counting.

Box said Iowa law requires that a paper ballot be created for each vote so the ballots can be recounted, and as a result, he said touch voting machines, some of which can produce paper ballots, have not gained favor in Iowa.

Only machines from three vendors have been certified by the state, none of which uses a touch screen as standard machinery, he said. All three provide a touch screen tablet for those with vision, hearing or other disabilities.

On Tuesday, Box updated the Linn Board of Supervisors about the county's existing election equipment, which he said has and continues to count ballots accurately. He said the equipment will be used this year, including in the city elections in November.

But Box said the vendor of the county's equipment, Diebold/Premier, no longer exists. The computer software that supports the equipment and election devices for those with disabilities needs to be upgraded.

In addition, the current scanners, one of which goes in each of the county's 86 voting precincts during countywide votes, have a design flaw that has been known to jam the scanner as the machine diverts ballots with write-in votes to one side of the ballot box and those without write-in votes to the other side.

Such jams have caused election officials to open the scanner ballot boxes at polling places while people are voting, which Box said has prompted more than one call to his office with questions of tampering.

'I don't need that,” he said.

Linn County is not alone in Iowa, Box said, in moving ahead to buy the 'next generation” of equipment so it can be in place for the 2016 presidential election.

Grant Veeder, Black Hawk County auditor, said Tuesday his office also is preparing to replace its election equipment, which, like Linn County, it purchased in 2008 with federal money.

In Johnson County, Auditor Travis Weipert said he is holding pat on his election equipment until after the 2016 presidential election, when he said the equipment will turn about 10 years old. He called that beyond its life expectancy.

'I do know a large number of counties bought equipment to allow for a trial run before the presidential election,” he said.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said Tuesday the federal money allowing the purchases years ago was a 'well-intentioned” action that came without a plan for what to do next.

'States and counties bought a lot of new voting equipment, but now it's old and no plan was put in place, so how do you replace it again?” Pate asked.

Both Box in Linn County and Veeder in Black Hawk County said their election equipment is unable to count a high volume of absentee ballots in quick fashion in an era when Box said 40 percent of the ballots may be cast before Election Day in the next presidential election. The new equipment will include a high-speed, central count system, they said.

Dawn Jindrich, the county's budget director, said the county had anticipated spending on election machines in 2018 and 2019, and will need to move some other capital improvement projects around to pay for the equipment earlier.

James Q. Lynch of The Gazette contributed to this report.