New voting machines to be ready by November election

The federal certification on Young County’s new voting machines is done, and the county is on track to be using the system in the upcoming November election.

Ken Trethewey, sales director for  Hart InterCivic, announced at the commissioners court meeting Monday that the state certification will begin Aug. 18.

Young County purchased 65 of the Verity 2.0 voting machines and other necessary equipment from Hart two years ago for $330,000. The process of getting certification on the machines both federally and through the state has delayed the machines making their way to Young County and in the hands of voters. However, the delay has saved the county money, Trethewey said.

“We had our sixth Texas county to buy this deal, and Young County by far has the best pricing,” he said. “Everybody else has been paying 2016 pricing; you guys got that price we locked in two years, so you are coming up, I reckon, $60,000 cheaper than had you waited till this year to buy the same configuration of equipment.”

Five other Texas counties have bought the system on the current pricing, according to Trethewey, and Young County is the only county to get the reduced price of $3,860 instead of $4,650 for each machine.
Hart has installed the new voting machines in six other states since 2014 but none in Texas because of the two-part certifications.

Aug. 18 will be the final public hearing date, and the system will be state-certified 30 days afterwards, according to Trethewey. Testing dates for the new machines are June 29-30, and the state has already tested and approved Verity 1.0, according to Trethewey.

“This is Verity 2.0, so they have already seen components of this system before including software, so it should be a pretty pro forma process this week to get through that testing,” he said.

Young County, Medina County and Madison County are all planning to use the equipment this November and will be the only three counties in Texas to implement the system for this election.

“Our plant is in Sugar Land, Texas, we build everything down there, and that’s why we are taking orders now,” he said. “Our production run takes about four months, so you guys that are planning on implementing this November, we have got your run going.”

Young County sold the previous voting equipment and its 177 pieces to Ector County in late 2015 for $175,000, and officials underestimated the time it would take to acquire the new voting equipment. The county borrowed the equipment it currently uses from Hart for recent elections; Hart waived all fees for renting the equipment due to the extended certification time.

The new technology brings with it 15 years of improvements over the previous system used in Young County, according to Lauren Sullivan, elections administrator.

Some of the improvements include that voters can now change the font size if it’s too small for them to read, use a touchscreen to cast their votes, change the language of the ballot in middle of the voting process and change the contrast to black and white or white and black, as necessary for better visibility.

Accessible units for the visually impaired will still have a spin dial, but they system also has a curbside function that allows election officials to take the small voting screen to voters who are unable to wait in line and can’t make it into the voting booth. Another added feature for those who are visually impaired is controls that extend out of the polling booth and can be similar to a wired controller.

The server class computers they used for the machines were purchased by Young County for $3,000 and now sell for $5,800, which help contribute to the $60,000 saved. Other minor changes will save the county $10,000.   

Early voting starts Oct. 24, and, according to Trethewey, the company will be reviewing drafts of the contract in advance in order to get the systems ready as soon as they can and shipped in mid- to late-September.
“Some states, believe it or not, don’t have any certification requirements. Like Mississippi, you can just go in there and sell whatever you want,” he said. “Some states only require the federal certification, and as long as you have that you are good to go. Texas has both a federal and a state requirement, and you can’t even apply to the state until you already have your federal certification.”

Sullivan has reached out to Graham Custom Cabinets to build  floor-to-ceiling shelving and each unit would store like books. Sullivan said that she is excited for the new systems and that she impressed with the improvements they will offer the county.  

“I have looked at them and been excited about them since I first came on with the county. They were just starting to get prototypes built when I came on,” Sullivan said. “I think they are more user-friendly. Most of our voters are trying to touch the screens on our current machines and that doesn’t work, so I think that they are a little bit more ready for the voters. I am impressed at the streamlining of it; I am impressed with the software of it. It is just, by far, an incredible improvement from what we’ve had, and not that what we have had is bad; it’s just this is way updated.