The county will rent more voting machines from its new vendor for this year’s presidential elections to make sure they have more than enough machines to accommodate the massive voter turnout that is expected.
The Johnson County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved renting 30 additional machines for this year’s presidential elections in May and November.
Johnson County Clerk Trena McLaughlin went before the Johnson County Board of Commissioners Wednesday to ask for permission to rent the additional machines from MicroVote, the same central Indiana vendor the county rented all of its equipment and services from last year, and recently bought 320 new machines from.
“I’ve done a lot of work, research, and this year is going to be a very busy election; I believe more so in the general than the primary,” McLaughlin told the commissioners.
“Of course next year there won’t be an election, and then with the other elections, our vendor has assured us that they have mirrored us with other counties that have approximately the same number of registered voters.”
The Election Board didn’t seek to buy more machines because the county would only use more than 320 during the presidential elections every four years, McLaughlin said.
Presidential elections typically draw more voters to the polls. During the last presidential election, about 40 percent of the county’s registered voters cast ballots during the primary, and 63 percent voted in the general election. In November, voter turnout was more than double what county election officials predicted. More than 16 percent of registered voters cast ballots, up from 9.7 percent during the last comparable election in 2015. And in 2018, 50 percent of voters cast ballots during the General Election, and that number would have been higher had the election equipment worked properly. That’s compared to only 23 percent during the last midterm election in 2014. Election officials expect an even higher turnout this year due to surprisingly high turnouts during the last two general elections.
This year, considering issues that arose during the November 2018 election when 50 percent of registered voters turned out for a mid-term and stood in lines for as many as three hours, she would rather be safe than sorry, she said.
“I want to be over-prepared,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve had problems in the past with elections, and I don’t want to have that problem. I think with 30 machines, that will give us enough to get us through this year’s elections.”
Each additional machine will cost the county about $1,800. The clerk’s office will pull the $54,000 that’s needed to rent the machines from its voting systems reimbursement fund, money the clerk’s office received in 2005 from the Secretary of State’s Office to help with the implementation of the Help America Vote Act, McLaughlin said.
“MicroVote has already assured me that they’ve put us first on the list, so as soon as I get approval from the commissioners, they will provide them for us,” she said during an Election Board meeting on Tuesday.
Another reason the county needs additional machines is because as many as 18 of the new machines will be out of commission after officials test the equipment in April, and again in October. A new state law that took effect last year made it so that counties cannot use the 5% of machines they are required to test before each election.
The county spent about $1.5 million on services and equipment, including 320 voting machines. The Infinity Voting Machine with VVPAT — Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail — is the newest system MicroVote has to offer, and was certified by the state last July. The contract between the county and the company is for four years.
Electronic poll books and the VVPATs have been delivered, and McLaughlin said machine cases were expected to be delivered this week. But election officials are still waiting on delivery of the voting machines. MicroVote has said the equipment will be delivered in early February, which will give them ample time to prepare it for the primary election.
Republican and Democrat candidates have to file to seek office by Feb. 7. The primary election is May 5. The general election is Nov. 3.
