New Montco Machines Make a Paper Trail for Votes

Photos by Evan Brandt

Jeffrey Cades of Gilbertsville, left, gets instruction from county employee Frank Spollen on amending his paper ballot during a demonstration of Montgomery County's new voting machines Tuesday at Montgomery County Community College's West Campus in Pottstown. The machines will make their debut during next month's primary election on May 21.

In the wake of fears about tampering with electronic voting machines during the 2016 elections, Montgomery County is in the midst of a roll-out of its new voting machines, which will create paper records of every vote.

Montgomery County Commissioners Chairwoman Valerie Arkoosh said the county was already in the process of replacing its previous machines, now more than 20 years old, when Gov. Tom Wolf signed a law requiring Pennsylvania voting machines to keep paper records.

June Landis of Limerick watches as her ballot is submitted.

"We had been socking money away to pay for new machines before the governor signed that bill," she said.

The Dominion Voting System cost $3.5 million, nearly $1 million of which was provided by federal funding.

When all is said and done, the contract will cost about $5 million over the course of eight years of maintenance, servicing and upgrades.

Arkoosh said the system chosen was the least expensive and the one overwhelmingly preferred by the 300-or-so people who showed up last year at the Montgomery County Community College's main campus in Blue Bell where the 11 possible models were on display.

County employee Frank Spollen explains the new voting machines
to, from left, Pottstown Councilwoman Trenita Lindsay, Annette
Kobb of Pottstown and Ted Josey of Collegeville.

"This is what our constituents wanted," she said.

"I love a paper ballot," said June Landis of Limerick as she tried it out during the demonstration at the community college's West Campus in Pottstown Tuesday night. "It can't be hacked and it's available for a re-count if necessary."

Arkoosh said the county decided against issuing paper receipts reflecting the vote cast "because it would be used for intimidation, like if a spouse demands to see how a spouse voted. Also, it could be used as proof to sell votes."

These machines will not be connected to the Internet, which was also true of the previous machines, Arkoosh said.

She said the paper records will be kept for at least two years and the county is in discussions with the Pennsylvania Department of State to look into holding random accuracy audits of machines to match them against the paper records.

"We're just trying to figure out how many we need to audit to be statistically significant," Arkoosh said.

Joan Chambers of Lower Frederick isn't so sure about the new machines. Here she is having the machine explained to her:



"I think I'm too old for change," Chambers said with a laugh after she finished. "The first time I tried it got spit back out and told me there were four things wrong with it."

Faux voters fill out faux ballots as part of the effort Tuesday to
familiarize themselves with Montgomery County's new voting
machines which will be used for the first time during the
May 21 primary election.

Teresa Harris, communication manager for Montgomery County, said the county has been keeping track of concerns raised by residents as the machines tour the county for similar demonstrations.

"The most frequent complaint we get is people didn't know we were changing them," she said. "People are also worried it will take too much time and make the lines longer."

But the fact that the machines will be used for the first time in an off-year primary election, traditionally the one with the lowest voter turn-out, may help voters ease into the new method, Harris said.

The faux ballot.

For the test, those who showed up were given a faux ballot for the "Famous Names Acceptance
Election." It asked faux voters to pick their favorite sports team, author, musician, artist, TV talk-show host, college and even past president.

On the reverse side, ballot questions, one simple, one complicated, offered yes/no options. Voters fill in "bubbles," much like standardized tests from school, to make their selections.

The ballot is scanned optically and the machine takes note if there are any discrepancies, like an "under vote," someone not filling in a bubble, or offering a write-in alternative.

This reporter's attempt to befuddle the machine by writing in two votes proved futile, this despite the fact that I indicated the New York Mets are one of my favorite sports teams. (They're not, but I like them more than the Yankees.)

Here is video of my vote being cast:



"It's pretty simple," Gilbertsville resident Jeffrey Cades said of the new voting method. "And I'm glad they have some way to verify the vote and do a re-count if they have to."

"I think it's an improvement over what we had previously and it works pretty fast once you know how to use it," Cades said.

Pottstown Land Bank Chairwoman Deb Penrod and Pottstown

School Board member John Armato get instruction on the

new voting machines being demonstrated last night.

There will be two more demonstrations and, like in Pottstown, they will be held at 6 p.m. and precede "Conversations with the Commissioners" town hall meetings.

The next one is scheduled for Wednesday, May at in Pennsburg, in the multi-purpose room of the Upper Perkiomen Education Center at 2229 East Buck Road.

The last one will be Monday, May 6 in the Great Room in the commons Building at Arcadia University, 450 S. Easton Road in Glenside.

And now, without further ado, are the Tweets from the event. (Look for coverage of the Conversations with the Commissioners event which followed the voting machine demonstration in a subsequent blog post.)

Making a Voting Paper Trail