Starke County’s nine-year-old voting machines will undergo an update to bring them up to date with operating systems and security.
Starke County Election Board Proxy Member Dan Bridegroom told the Starke County Council members last week that they approached the council last year with a request to upgrade the machines at a cost of about $67,000. The update would be done by Microvote officials and it had to be done by the 2020 Presidential Election. The council members tabled a decision when it came to them last year.
Microvote Representative Steve Shamo told the council members last week the upgrades need to be done.
“The idea is to get this up to Windows 10 for the system,” explained Shamo. “It will also introduce some new security software within the software itself. From the voter standpoint, they won’t see any difference whatsoever.”
Shamo delivered some positive news to the council regarding the upgrade.
“There are six counties left in the state who have not done this upgrade and the Secretary of State’s office has taken it upon themselves to pay for your upgrade to get you up to the necessary platform.
He noted that the machines will be upgraded after this year’s November Municipal General Election.
Shamo explained that the State is going to introduce a requirement of a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail in which a printer will be connected to a voting machine to sit in the back of the voting booth on Election Day.
“The process would be that the voters make their selections, but prior to casting their final vote they will see a paper printout of the choices they made to confirm that there’s this integral interaction between paper and machine.”
The Secretary of State will be buying 10 percent of the printers for every county in the state. For now, they will be used to accommodate absentee voting, but every machine will have one by 2029. At that time, the county could possibly make a different choice concerning voting machines.
In the meantime, the Election Board members are looking to approve quotes to construct a secure room for the voting machines to be stored. They are also looking toward evolving to e-poll books.
