Harrisonburg elections director outlines steps to speed same-day registration, adjust mileage reporting and staff for fall

At its July meeting, the Harrisonburg City Electoral Board heard an update from Mark (last name not provided), director of elections, on efforts to improve same-day registration processing, staffing and other operational items ahead of the fall election.

Mark said the office has been working with comparable localities to develop faster procedures for same-day registration (SDR) on campus and elsewhere in the city and aims to refine the process for the fall election. He said the office used lessons from the primary and the provisional-ballot workflow to identify bottlenecks and will continue work on the “back provisional / ballot” process to reduce delays.

The director described staffing plans to reduce data-entry delays on election day. He said the office is in discussions with human resources and finance about temporarily hiring one or two officers of election to help enter SDR information into the city’s verification system (referred to in the meeting as “Veri’s”), and that…