About 25 pollworkers — some veterans, some rookies — learned how to operate all new equipment Tuesday night in preparation for the upcoming municipal election, and it was a hit.
Representatives from MicroVote, the Indianapolis-based vendor Johnson County recently hired to provide equipment and run its elections this year, led the training sessions, which lasted less than two hours.
Pollworkers who did not attend Tuesday or Wednesday night’s trainings in Greenwood have two more chances, both in Franklin, April 10 and 11.
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In February, the county decided to fire its longtime election vendor, Election Systems and Software, and rent all new equipment and services for this year’s elections. Pollworkers may need to learn new equipment again next year if the county decides to purchase from another vendor, a decision the county’s three-member Election Board and three-member Board of Commissioners are expected to make later this year ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
For now, election officials and pollworkers have a quick and easy system to navigate.
The electronic pollbooks, which is what failed voters during the last election, are iPads with special, certified software that makes it easy for clerks to check in voters and make sure they receive the correct ballot. The clerks will simply scan a voter’s driver’s license, have them confirm their information is correct and sign the tablet so the clerk can match that signature with the one on file.
Next, the pollworker will print a ticket for the voter to give to a judge, who will walk them to a machine, insert a card and pull up the correct ballot.
Scanning the driver’s license instead of checking in voters manually should take care of a common issue, said Reagan Higdon, deputy clerk.
“This will hopefully take care of the Jr. Sr., Mr. Mrs. mishaps that seemed to happen every year,” Higdon said.
In the past, voters would sign in and vote under their father or son, or husband or wife’s information, and then that person would be told they’ve already voted, she said.
Clerks will have the option to manually search for a voter if the driver’s license won’t scan, but for the most part, scanning driver’s license barcodes is expected to speed up the check-in process significantly, officials said.
Each pollworker practiced using both the e-pollbooks and voting machines, taking no more than a couple minutes each to learn all there is to learn.
“It’s pretty intuitive. I think it’s clear and simple to use. It’s modern technology,” said Evan Garrison, 29, of Bargersville, a first-time pollworker.
“The training (MicroVote) did on the screen was pretty cut and dry. It’s a pretty streamlined, efficient check-in process. The extra verification steps, I find those beneficial,” he said.
LaVonne Rhoda, of Bargersville, has been a pollworker since she was 18 years old. She has worked the polls in Indiana and Florida for many decades, she said. She was working during last year’s Election Day kerfuffle.
“I was a part of that mess, and it was horrible. People were angry. They were screaming at us. They were lined up, wrapped around the church over on Whiteland Road, because we had to cut (the line) off. Of course, the people who were more than 50 feet back couldn’t vote, but they had been standing there for hours,” Rhoda said.
She doesn’t foresee any issues with the new equipment, she said after testing it on Tuesday.
“Wonderful,” Rhoda repeated over and over. “It’s more automated and foolproof. Before, you could make human error too easily, and you had too much control, in my opinion, of the database and the sorting. This takes it away from you, which is nice.”
Stellamae Carley, 80, of Greenwood, has been a pollworker for about 17 years.
“Oh my gosh, so much better,” Carley said of the new equipment. “Even next year during the presidential, if we have this same equipment, I think it’ll move a lot faster.”
Johnson County Clerk Trena McLaughlin pushed for new equipment from the moment she took office, eventually encouraging the commissioners to go with MicroVote. She is pleased with the training and reaction.
“Everyone that I was watching over here went right through it. They knew how to turn the e-pollbooks on and look up their name, so I think it went great. It’s fast,” McLaughlin said.
The new voting machines are much lighter and take less time to set up and power on, and they’re not touch-screen like the old machines. Voters will push buttons to cast votes. Every machine has its own printer to allow for a paper trail, and none of the machines will be in sync with each other.
“The closeout … you wouldn’t believe it. We were there until 10 o’clock last time. So the closeout, because they’re not linked together, (we) won’t have to wait for each one to tally and then go to the next one. They’re independent,” Rhoda said.
With the old equipment, and only one printer per site, it could take an hour just to print the final tally sheet at a vote center, Carley said.
“It was horrible,” she said.
Having learned about the new equipment and tried it, Rhoda and Carley estimate they’ll be done an hour after the polls close.
“Every person that I have talked to so far, they have thanked me for changing it,” McLaughlin said. “I felt like this was something that had to be done.”
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Here is a look at the remaining training schedule for pollworkers for this year’s primary municipal election:
10 a.m. April 10, at the Franklin Community Center, 396 Branigin Blvd, Franklin;
6 p.m. April 11, at the Franklin Community Center
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