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Supervisor of Elections: equipment replacement and vote-by-mail trends behind modest budget increase
Summary
Supervisor Wesley Wilcox told commissioners his office's FY2025-26 budget includes a one-time equipment replacement item for aging election electronics; he reported vote-by-mail and registration trends and said the one-time cost can be funded from nonrecurring county dollars without raising millage.
Wesley Wilcox, Marion County Supervisor of Elections, told commissioners the elections office proposed a FY2025-26 budget with about a 5% increase driven largely by one-time equipment replacements for end-of-life electronics.
Wilcox said the office had planned to delay replacement but market changes made immediate purchases advisable; the equipment items are under the county's $5,000 threshold per asset classification but the quantity and aggregate cost create a material one-time operating impact. Audit and budget staff later confirmed a nonrecurring funding source would cover the purchase so it would not increase the proposed millage.
Wilcox also discussed voter-registration and vote-by-mail trends. He said a state policy requiring outreach when a voter has not participated in two general elections reduced rolls of inactive registrants and that Marion County registration counts have varied with those statewide changes. Wilcox reported the county saw roughly 2,700 registrations fall after redistricting but has averaged 700'800 net new registrations per month in normal months; he estimated active voter rolls could reach the 275,000'280,000 range by the Nov. 2026 election cycle.
On vote-by-mail, Wilcox described statutory expiration of requests in even-numbered Decembers and explained that the office will mail postcards to prior vote-by-mail voters ahead of upcoming elections; he promoted the county's ballot-track notification service that tells voters when ballots are printed, mailed and received back by the office.
Budget director Audrey Fowler told commissioners the elections office's one-time equipment charge can be met with previously identified nonrecurring funds, so the purchase would not add to the general-fund millage.
Why it matters: Equipment failures can affect election administration; the supervisor outlined operational changes and voter behavior that affect staffing and cost estimates.
What's next: Wilcox and finance staff will proceed with procurement planning funded by nonrecurring county dollars; commissioners asked for continued updates on vote-by-mail volumes and equipment implementation.
