Monongalia County Becomes First ExpressVote Customer In West Virginia, First In The Nation To Have 100% Of Their Voters Use An ExpressVote
Election Systems & Software (ES&S) hit two milestones on July 2 thanks to a unanimous decision by the Monongalia County Commission. Monongalia will be the first county in West Virginia to purchase our ExpressVote® Universal Voting System as well as DS200® in-precinct vote scanners and tabulators, furthering their reputation as a technological leader in the state. This county will also be the first in the nation to have every voter use an ExpressVote when marking their vote selections. ExpressPoll® Electronic Pollbooks will also be used, although Jackson County, West Virginia precedes them in this purchase area.
While our ExpressVote and DS200 in-precinct voting system configuration is the most widely used in vote centers and on Election Day, most customers use the ExpressVote as their ADA compliant voting solution. Monongalia will blaze the trail as the first to implement our visionary voting approach for every eligible voter from start to finish. Voters will check-in on ExpressPoll tablets and receive a paper activation card. Once inserted into the ExpressVote, each voter will use the touch screen interface to mark and confirm their selections, receiving a verifiable paper record upon completion. This record has printed text, identifying a voter’s selections, as well as an optical scan barcode that contains each selection. From there they simply feed their paper record into the DS200, where they receive on-screen confirmation that their vote has been cast.
County Clerk Carye Blaney is looking forward to what this technology will mean for her county during the 2016 election cycle, stating
I’m proud that it’s going to be a county in West Virginia [where 100% of voters use an ExpressVote] and I hope it will showcase the advantages of using the newer technology and encourage more voters to return to voting. Our voter turnout numbers have been decreasing like they have across the country. I hope the excitement of our County purchasing new voting equipment and being the first in the Nation to use it for all of our voters demonstrates how committed we are to improving our election process and improving our voter turnout. I’m proud we are going to be using this technology for the 2016 elections.