If it’s been a while since you voted, you may notice some changes this Election Day. Most precincts in Virginia on November 3rd will be using a mix of new machines-and one old tradition to count your ballot.
One way votes used to be collected can be seen inside a 7-foot-metal cabinet in a back room at the Roanoke Municipal Building.
On the shelves City Registrar of Voters Andrew Cochran has reams of 8 ½ x 11 paper ballots, each about as thick as an index card and costing 25 cents a piece.
“They are shrink-wrapped in packages of 100, and we have ordered about 40,000 ballots for this election.”
Most voters across the state will be using paper ballots like these to pick candidates for state house and senate seats, and local offices, next month. But those ballots won’t be stuffed into a box.
“Once people are checked in they will go to a ballot distribution table where they will receive a paper ballot, from there they will go to a privacy marking station where they can mark their selections in private and from there they go to a scanner where they will actually feed their ballot into the scanner to be tabulated.”
A recent change in state law requires localities to move away from touchscreen voting systems to ones that also create a paper record.
Montgomery County will be using optical scanning of paper ballots at all precincts for the first time after phasing it in the last three years.
Registrar Randy Wertz says voting this way seems to be easier for everyone, including poll workers.
“It’s easier to start them up in the morning and shut them down in the evening. The new software that we just got on our machines makes it so easy that it leads you at the end of the day right through the whole process. So all you have to do is hit ‘next’ and it does it for you so it works out real well. Our officers of elections love it.”
Most registrars have also switched to electronic poll-books to check your registration status.
“It tells the people at the registration desk exactly what ballot to give the person. Because we have 30 different ballot styles here this upcoming election.”
And after each election, state law says all the marked ballots have to be stored for two years…kept secure not in a machine with a password…but locked in a room or cabinet…the old-fashioned way.
