Thursday, March 28, 2024

Board of Commissioners approve purchase of election software

BELLEFONTE — With the primary election looming in May, Centre County is gearing up for the big day. During the Feb. 21 Centre County Board of Commissioners meeting, the board approved spending $28,000 for a contract with ElectionIQ LLC to provide custom software for poll workers and inventory management.

Beth Lechman, Centre County’s director of elections and voter registration, spoke about the need for the software.

“(ElectionIQ) will provide software for our department to help organize our election boards. That software will be customized to fit our needs,” Lechman explained.

“It will allow us to identify which boards are completely filled (and) which ones need additional workers.” It will also help with training the poll workers, Lechman said.

“We can do some quizzes to make sure that the poll workers are prepared to serve on election day,” she said.

According to Lechman, ElectionIQ will also provide the county with “inventory software.” “(It) will allow us to do a little more security for our election equipment,” Lechman said.

The software will allow the county to track exactly where certain pieces of equipment are. It will take the guesswork out of election day, she said. “With the use of tablets in the future, we can actually give those to our delivery drivers and they can scan each piece of equipment — when it’s delivered and when they pick it up. It will make sure that we can inventory the equipment better,” Lechman said.

The $28,000 was a budgeted expense, she told the BOC. Lechman said her office still gets “right to know” requests regarding previous elections. “We haven’t had the in-person challenges that they were having in the past. But, yes, there are people still wanting data from the past elections,” Lechman said. She also said there will be no wholesale changes to the way things are done on election day.

“Nothing new, nothing surprising at this point,” Lechman said. Chair Mark Higgins thanked the election boards for their hard work on election day. “I think we have roughly 88 of them in the county,” Higgins said of the boards. “It’s a very, very long day twice a year, not counting the training beforehand. And we are always looking for extra help there.”

Higgins also noted that the upcoming elections are “very important.” “We’re electing — in many cases — the majority of the school boards, the majority of the municipal officials and definitely the majority of the elected county positions as well. All very important for local quality of life,” Higgins said.

The Centre County Board of Commissioners will meet again at 10 a.m. on Feb. 28 at the Willowbank Building. The meeting is open to the public and will be televised live by C-NET. The March 7 meeting has been canceled.