Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
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GRANGEVILLE — Without a hitch: The electoral debut of electronic poll books at the March 8 levy election was met positively with little to no issue, according to the Idaho County Elections Office, a good trial run for the busy primary expected this May.
“From the feedback we’ve gotten so far from the poll workers, it was positive,” said Jessica Adams, election deputy. “We had a few questions on, ‘How do you do this,’ and ‘How do you do that?’ but everything else went well.” A few voters were interested in the new system, she added, but mostly no one commented.
“We’re going to have them at every polling station in May,” Adams said. “I expect everything will go pretty smoothly.”
Electronic tablets are a commonplace feature in transactions, whether doing business at the bank or checking out at the grocery store. E-poll books are used across the state, and Idaho County added this tool to reduce the staff work involved in processing elections and improve voter flow at the polls. The levy vote was the trial run, according to Idaho County Clerk Kathy Ackerman.
“We wanted to ease our way into this because we knew the primary election was going to be quite busy,” she said, as well as to start familiarizing voters with them.
Not all of the county’s 23 precincts were impacted by the levy, so heading into the May primary, additional poll worker training will be conducted on e-poll book use.
That use is as simple as scanning the code on a voter’s driver’s license or ID card. The tablet draws on voter data, which was uploaded the Friday before the election, that will list the voter’s address. The poll worker will confirm this with the voter, who signs using a stylus, and the tablet readout will list what ballots will be issued for that person. Tablet information will be precinct-specific, so a voter attempting to register at the wrong station will be redirected to his or her correct voting location. As well, it will have whether a person has voted before, and poll workers will direct the voter to contact the elections office for further questions.
Voters forgetting they’ve already cast a ballot is not uncommon, according to Bette Polack, Idaho County Elections director.
“It happens with these close elections,” she said, such as with a March levy vote, “and then they may come in early to vote in the May primary, and then later go to the polls. That’s where it gets confusing sometimes because people don’t remember when they voted.”
So where do the e-poll books improve the process? On the back end for starters, explained Ackerman.
In the past, the Friday night before elections staff will print poll books for each of the 23 precincts that lists all the eligible voters and if a person has already voted, whether at the courthouse or by absentee ballot.
“It’s a time-consuming endeavor to get 23 precinct books printed and put together to be delivered on Monday,” she said. Following an election, staff will go through the poll books and scan the voter history of each person in three separate passes for Republicans, Democrats and independent voters, “touching each precinct book three times,” Polack added. This process can take around two months, which has to be folded into the work in preparing for the next election — a busy time, Ackerman said, if you have a presidential primary followed up with a May primary.
The e-poll books eliminate that process, as data is added once and downloaded into tablets, and following the election the information from these — including who voted and who didn’t, and who registered at the polls — flows back into the county’s election system.
For clarification, Ackerman wants voters to know these e-poll books are not connected to the Internet or any other transmittable format.
“It is just for voter check-in. It doesn’t have anything to do with the voting component, only that a ballot has been issued for that person. A voter can take the ballot to the voting station, not vote it and turn it back in. That’s not going to be tracked. It will tell us what ballots were issued, which a regular poll book did anyway.”
Voters should find this gets them through the process smoother, and that it ensures voting integrity, according to both Ackerman and Polack.
For the poll workers, “they’re excited not to go flipping through poll books,” Polack said.
— David Rauzi, Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville), Wednesday
Cost leads McCall-Donnelly School District to cancel new office construction
MCCALL — Plans to build new district offices for the McCall-Donnelly School District have been canceled after construction estimates came in about $800,000 above the $2 million proposed budget.
The current district offices at 120 Idaho St. in McCall will be remodeled instead of being rebuilt, M-D Superintendent Eric Pingrey said.
“A remodel will not provide us with extra space,” Pingrey said. “We will focus on creating a healthy workplace environment.”
“I am not recommending spending an additional $800,000,” he said. “We will shift our focus to more pressing projects.”
Plans for the new building included five offices and a conference room and a 58-person meeting room.
The building was intended to host not only district administrators, but also the Information Technology department and provide a space for school board meetings that are now held at McCall-Donnelly High School.
The IT department is currently housed in a temporary building in the high school parking lot.
Plans to remodel the current offices should be finished later this spring or in the summer, Pingrey said.
The current building includes four offices and has several problems including drinking water, heating and mold.
In November, the district board of trustees approved spending no more than $2 million on the new building.
Costs for the new building would be paid from a combination of the district’s capital improvement fund, capital project fund and federal funds which totaled about $2.5 million.
The capital improvement fund is a board directed fund that consists of budget surpluses. The capital construction fund is used for miscellaneous improvement projects.
— Max Silverson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
