Isanti County elections staff recommend switching to electronic poll books; vendor quote about $100,000

Isanti County elections staff outlined plans to replace paper voter rosters with electronic poll books — tablet devices often called e‑poll pads — and presented an estimated vendor quote of about $100,000 to equip the county.

At a Feb. 25 County Board meeting, Angie Larson, an elections official from the Isanti County elections office, said the e‑poll books would let election judges search and check voters on tablets, scan driver licenses for election‑day registrations and upload voting history directly to election systems after voting. “With the iPads, voter information is kept more private … and there’s more accurate check‑in for the voters,” Larson said.

Larson told the board that one vendor recommended roughly one poll pad per 500…