Director of Elections previews voting tech changes, shorter voter-book close and print-on-demand ballots

Christine Lewis, director of elections and general registrar, told council on May 6 that the elections office’s FY26 budget is down from last year’s presidential-election cycle and previewed operational changes to speed ballot production and results reporting.

Lewis said the office has about 14 full-time equivalents with roughly $3 million in the operating budget; the decline from last year is due to one-time presidential-election costs. She said state law changed the voter-registration-book close from 21 days to 10 days prior to an election.

Voting-operations changes: Lewis said the office received a state-provided print-on-demand ballot system and will pilot it in about 10 precincts in the upcoming election, with the goal of wider use by November. The elections office also submitted a capital-improvement request for voting-equipment replacement and is coordinating with City IT on an election-official management system intended to accelerate election-night reporting.

Lewis said the city has 180–180+ precincts (transcript references 180 and 808; the office confirmed 180 is the number of precincts currently staffed) and that annual elections require repeated staffing of precincts; the office pays election officials out of the operations budget. She said the office expects to move to a new facility in the future and is working on integration and training with IT to improve reporting speed while noting ranked-choice voting in other jurisdictions can slow some results.

Ending: Lewis asked council members for questions and noted IT is working on a mobile-app approach to faster results reporting.